why do people pretend like free will exists?
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why do people pretend like free will exists?
>pretend
Because nobody really has free will.
/thread
Because it does depending on how strict you want your definitions to be. We're free within our fates.
It does exist, I've argued for it a billion times on 4chan, you guys will never listen.
>>24941838
It exists.
Saged, reported and hidden.
because people like to believe that are always in control, especially themselves
>pretend
There lack of will makes them believe they have freewill, therefore you cannot blame them for believing it since it is beyond their control.
Or maybe people do and you're just unwilling to prove it by exerting it and changing yourself
How do you define free will?
>>24941920
>>24941917
lol...normies...when will they learn
>>24941980
the delusional idea that anything beyond genetics + environment has any affect on your life.
>>24941838
It is incorrect to think of free will in terms of belief. What we call 'free will' reflects a personality dimension, whether we approach (mostly, but not exclusively) other people in terms of reaction (incl. praise, admiration, resentment, blame) or in terms of causal investigation ('what in his/her nurture and nature has caused him/her to do that?'). Insofar as you tend to do the latter, you reject free will, insofar as you do the former, you embrace it -- regardless of any declarations of yours.
/thread
>>24942079
In other words, 'belief' in free will measures reluctance to ask 'why?'.
>>24941838
because they have no free will and are supposed to be that retarded
dumb question tbch lineage
Free will does exist. The problem is that if you were to practice it in first world society, you will likely end up homeless and hungry and dead
Because its irrelevant. It makes no difference from anyone's perspective whether or not your fate is determined or you create it, because its impossible to deduce anyway.
>>24943429
Thoroughly wrong. Rejection of free will would help the society profoundly... except it will never happen because 'belief' in it is pretty much the difference between autistic and allistic brains, which is genetic.
>>24943506
No it wouldn't. The future is unknowable in any circumstances, so the knowledge that you future is set but you cannot what it is set to be makes no difference from the rejection that your future is defined at all.
>>24943611
I'm taking about the social effects of removal of resentment in daily life, science (neuroscience) obsoleting religion (psychology), increased insight into causes of behaviour incl. crime and mental illnesses and developing better remedies, explicitation of arbitrariness of decision-making e.g. in the law, and so on. The usual.
u can do what u want
i feel like it's psycologically impossible to fully believe you have no free will. If asked, i would say i have none, but day to day i still act like i do.
>>24943715
>it's psycologically impossible to fully believe you have no free will.
I have felt it. And no, no shitty drugs or shitty 'meditation' is needed for that. Just the modicum of introspection, noticing that your ideas and desires won't happen unless, you know, something makes them happen. That it is impossible to will a thought into existence that isn't the product of a pattern recognition.
>>24943667
Again, none of this is possible because the future is unknowable. Fundementally. A determined universe would not help any of these fields because just because person is x does not always mean they will be y. Just because someone has pyschotic traits does not mean they will hurt someone.
it exists but you have to earn it
>>24943778
Did you even read my post?
If free will were rejected, people would -- essentially -- spend their time quietly asking each other 'why did he/she do that?' rather than *foster* (note the difference from 'mete out') resentment and retribution.
reminder that people who don't believe in free will are just making excuses for their shitty lives
>>24943828
Reminder that you have no idea what you're talking about because your whole notion of the issue is based on a non-existent high school stereotype.
>>24943850
>>24943828
(In reality, of course, rejection of free will is the most moral and responsible position one can have, but after the dozenth time you try to explain...)
I don't think free will exists.. but I don't believe in omnipotent intelligent design either
Replace 'free will' with 'what exactly stops me from doing what I want?'.
Essentially what happens is a much easier to rationalise concept where we can put our actions into a more personal context.
Think about it, you are walking down the street and see a car coming past at about 50 mph, what exactly is stopping you from just jumping out into the road and dying? The answer will be different to everyone who answers it obviously but at its core the common reasoning is 'the only thing stopping myself from doing what my body is capable of within my ability is myself.'
>>24943988
that's just basic causation model...
"i don't do what i don't do because i don't"
but that doesn't prove nor disprove the existence of free will
>>24943876
...Because when you help people, you do it not because they 'deserve' it, but because helping is an inherent good.
...Because you can no longer satisfy your curiosity with 'he just did it' when you want to learn why someone did something.
...Because you know that you can only count on yourself -- because you deserve nothing, no one owes you anything, you're on your own. And you can blame no one for your failures.
...Because you can no longer trust people to say 'sure, I'll take care of it' or 'I'll be fine' -- you know that people and their resolutions are fallible and their fill falters, and you need to double- and triple-ensure that everything actually *is* fine.
Because you can no longer tell people to 'just do it', 'just be yourself', 'just get over it', and expect praise for meaningful motivation -- your advice, to be substantial, has to at no point burden the other person's 'free will' with the responsibility to put their lives back on track. Again, if you want to change something, you need to think with concrete solutions.
>>24943988
And after you explain all this, you get people like this telling you that you are an irresponsible coward for rejecting the self-obvious fact that free will exists.
>>24944073
>you can no longer satisfy your curiosity with 'he just did it'
*with 'he just wanted to'
>their fill falters
*their will
>>24944030
Yes it does, stop trying to be some enlightened faggot who thinks he has 'unlocked' the secrets of the mind.
If I jumped in front of a car right now that would be free will since 'I' decided to do so, I have no other environmental or dispositional pressures to do so otherwise.
>>24944117
There would've been some environmental pressure even if it was "for the sake of proving a point in a 4chan post"
>>24944073
>...Because when you help people, you do it not because they 'deserve' it, but because helping is an inherent good.
(A corollary: everyone deserves good, even 'evil' people. When you reject free will, you need to face the reality that people who've wronged you deserve happiness exactly as much as you. Can you deal with that?)
Because
>muh special snowflake
People want to feel like they are magical beings created by a magical fairy wizard in the skies, instead of just a bunch of atoms stuck together that must follow a specific pattern in accordance to the laws of physics.
>>24944191
>by a magical fairy wizard in the skies
*by a magical fairy wizard in their skulls
>>24944169
Assuming that I did not make this post obviously.
Of course I would not do that, only someone who is mentally ill would do such a thing. Then you just get into the pointless argument of trying to rationalise mental illness, if I was to define mental illness in one word it would be 'irrational'.
>>24944117
your an idiot son. you dont understand cause and effect or free will.
if you jump in front of a car it is because you jumped in front of a car
if you *don't jump in front of a car that doesn't automatically prove "free will" it proves that nobody jumped in front of a car
>>24944227
So if you didn't have a reason you'd have to be mentally ill, in that case wouldn't the reason be some genetic/DNA/whatever defect that caused the brain to think such a normally unthinkable thing
I don't feel strongly either way on free will vs determinism I'm just saying why your argument doesn't do much for me
Of course there's a deep feeling within us that WE choose what we're going to do. But we don't have an explanation for WHAT that would be besides the sum of reactions of brain chemicals triggered by a vast and unknowable sequence of events transpiring since the Big Bang
>>24944255
You are not even making a point here, you are just stating the obvious.
>if you jump in front of a car it is because you jumped in front of a car
Yes by my 'own' rational I would have made that decision. Assuming there was no environmental or dispositional pressures to do so it would be entirely free will. However the kid of people who do such a thing are mentally ill which isn't even worth trying to explain.
>>24944345
Hush, anon.
Don't try to explain things to people who take the causal chain to the chain cutter as soon as it enters their brain.
>>24944348
...ookay i am glad you are following.
so if you do not jump in front of a car... you are assuming that is because of your "own" rational thought. and you think your little scenario proves it. how do you not see the fallacy?
i am not saying i am right about everything or that i have every answer but i am saying you are wrong with this example.
>>24944348
>>24944398
Gentle reminder that free will is not 'false vs true' but 'falsifiable versus unfalsifiable'. 'I did it because I chose to' is not true or false, it is tautological.
>>24944348
I think what he is trying to say is that if there was a theoretical super mega ultra powerful computer that could examine a person's brain activity, that computer could predict that person's "decisions" before he makes them. What we think is free will is just an illusion. What we think is our own decisions is also just an illusion.
>>24944465
that's part of my thought process minus the super computer. like the matrix 101
are our thoughts actually are own? anybody who tells you definitively is probably trying to sell you something.
>>24944345
I do not deny that our consciousnesses and self awareness is nothing more than a result of various electrical impulses and chemical interactions in our head.
However think about the brain like a computer, they do work completely differently but there is some similarities. Input stimuli -> Processing -> Behaviour output. The part we are discussing here is 'do we have any control over our processing to change our behaviour in response to said stimuli?'
Since it is impossible to repeat the same stimuli twice we cannot test this scientifically at all but what we can do is try to understand out processing.
Does a computer have 'free will'? If I pressed on application A instead of application B have the electrons in the processor been preselected by fate? I personally think not, to be honest I don't really care about it too much but it's a nice little mind puzzle, keeps the brain fresh.
>>24944465
>What we think is free will is just an illusion. What we think is our own decisions is also just an illusion.
Strictly speaking, anon, free will is the go-to explanation of our behaviour when we struggle for one. '...Why? Uh, well, I, um... Let's see... I... I actually don't--no, wait, I did it under my free will. Must be it. Yup.'
>>24944398
I disagree here, one does not decide to 'not' do something out of the norm. I do not decide to not kill myself everytime I see a car, however I 'could' if I wanted to.
'the only thing stopping myself from doing what my body is capable of doing within my ability is myself.'
>>24944502
>The part we are discussing here is 'do we have any control over our processing to change our behaviour in response to said stimuli?'
How can you not see that this is retarded?
'Given a fully causal system such as a human being, do we choose to define that system as fully causal, or are we going to exclude certain actions of that system as acausal and self-originating?'
You're giving a premise, and then you proceed to backpedal out of it.
This is just a definition game. What you're asking is literally whether we choose to consider everything one exhibits as matter-bound, or do we arbitrarily decide that 'nope some actions have magical free-volitional status'. Which is what I've been trying to explain over and over. Namely, the fact that free will is not a matter of an objectively existing or non-existing phenomenon, but a matter of election to draw causal relationships between one's environment and as broad a range of one's behaviour as possible.
>>24944608
>I do not decide to not kill myself everytime I see a car, however I 'could' if I wanted to.
sometimes I do. I have had very real moments where I contemplated how easy it would be to drive off into oncoming traffic. Of course I haven't done it because I am typing this comment right now. But did free will stay my hand from the wheel?
It isn't my life that I care about one of the main rationalizations I have for not doing this action is fear of hurting someone else.. and then leaving aftermath (broken car and expenses) on my family.
But here I am questioning my free will...
so your example of not killing yourself as free will is weak and that is my main point of these posts
>>24944502
>'do we have any control over our processing to change our behaviour in response to said stimuli?'
I just don't know what this "we" is. It gets recursive for me. Why would we be making decisions to control our processing? Because some sequence of events led us to, I don't know, decide to work harder, or go talk to the girl. The decision to control our own processing comes from some series of events in the world around us. Even if that reason is JUST to be random, JUST to "prove" I have free will
I tend toward determinism, but I admit it's cynical, I just see no reason to believe in the existence of anything "outside" of chemical inputs and reactions. Fuck if I know
>>24941838
Are you going to make them believe it doesn't exist against their will?
>>24944648
In other words, free will exists insofar as one is ignorant. The more allowing for causes one is, the less one believes in free will. Rejection of free will literally measures empiricism.
>>24944719
And of course, there is no reason whatsoever to stop halfway and say we have 'some' free will. As soon as you first acknowledge that occurrence of thought is affected by chemistry, to be consistent you must go the whole way.
Listen you fedoras, you have to explain why the ability to impart chamge on its environment of its own accord is exclusive to energy at atomic levels, why not at this level of existence? Why is consciousness not able to impart change on its own accord? When you remove the societal aspects of you, you get a self that is as fundamental as energy, consciousness is what energy becomes at a different point in the hierarchy of existence.
This is what we gather from our own experience, that consciousness is just as fundamental as energy, it is just on another level.
This is why we believe ourselves to have free will, because the self is all there is, and it is the environment, it is all in all, you cannot speak of a world without including the perceiving self. If you deny this you are literally denying reality.
In short, if you want any substance to your argument besides the prejudice and dogma that comes with
>muh atoms are the driving force kf change because cause and effect
>muh fairytales are egotistical and therefore wrong
then you have to explain why the conscious experience we all know to be reality is not just as capable of imparting change on itself as atoms, it IS reality.
RRRRREEEEEEEEE REDDIT DETERMINISTS GO BACK TO REDDIT
>>24944674
I agree that the suicide example does lead in natural survival instinct as an extraneous variable, however it is the ultimate question of "Can my own free will end my free will?"
For the record I do believe in free will in those who are sane, when it comes to mental illness it can become a cloudy subject which can change per individual. The only reason I have not killed myself is because I have some false hope of 'something' is better than an eternity of nothing. When I'm old as fuck I don't know how I'm going to cope, honestly I am afraid every night of my life (even though it is total shit) ending.
>>24944697
I don't believe in anything other than chemical input and shit.
But don't you think that by using certain neurons in a certain way can at the very least influence your actions?
>>24944784
I know I know it's fucked up
I feel seriously fedoracore with my "nothing but chemicals" argument. I have no satisfying definition to any kind of "energy" outside of my brain, however much I do feel what you're driving at
>>24944804
The reason you haven't killed yourself is because of generations and generations of people who came before you who were the products of instincts that made them want to survive. You also have this instinct
>>24944702
>Are you going to make them believe it doesn't exist against their will?
This question points to a sublime distinction, by the way. You'll all see it.
The *reaction* of a believer in free will would be (1) a personal feeling -- 'what? no! (or: what? yes!), I'm going to...' and proceeding to do anything one will have thought to do -- interpreting these words as a dare, or as an imputation of this or that.
And te reaction of a rejecter of free will would be (2) pausing, and wondering, 'well, knowing my brain's current chemical composition... am I going to do that, actually? probably not (probably yes). let me think.'. Interpreting those words as a factual question about the future, as factual as 'is it going to rain tomorrow'. Materialization, considering oneself as a body that one is.
There has been a period in my life that I largely and effortlessly did (2), although admittedly I was more socially isolated back then.
This is relevant to >>24943715.
>>24944804
Yeah I know what you mean brother. This is why i am insane any my first post is this....>>24943916
I dropped religion and intelligent design a long time ago but now I spend quite a lot of time critiquing/questioning the existence of free will. In a way I am exerting free will by doing what I do but I have this nagging suspicion that my "rational choice" has in fact been predetermined to some degree. This resulting feeling brings me to the two outcomes you said.. either consciousness as we know it (or another form)... or absolute nothing.
Sometimes that nothingness hits me and brings me down a bit but I try my best to follow in the Tao.
>>24941838
kill yourself fucking dumbass
>red pillers think we're just animals guided by our instincts and glands
Yeah, well ask a fucking wolf to write the Odyssey.
>>24941838
yet here you are arguing about free will, fucking dumbass
Also.
>>24944784
Stop rambling.
if we have no free will then it's the case for everyone anyway
why would me beating your mother to a pulp not make me accountable for it since determinism
we got to have our very own system of morals and laws from "trial and error", thinking and drawing conclusions as to what benefits Man the most over time, and change it all throughout history.
where would the idea of punishing a wrongdoer come from if it wasnt from free will?
>>24944987
The legal system would function just as well if free will were universally rejected, except it would be much more transparent. Sadly, the simple clarification of concepts involved seems beyond most people.
>>24941838
Because I have no choice but to do it. Everything was already determined ahead of time, I can't stop claiming to have free will.
>>24944949
>rambling
How can you respond to everything I wrote in two words? Its not fair, how can you expect anyone to take you seriously?
>>24944868
I don't know what you mean by "using certain neurons." Of course we've all thought about decisions. We've all made decisions about how we're going to apply our consciousness. But these decisions are made as the result of logical sequences. A gazelle runs away because he sees a lion and doesn't want to get eaten. I decide to work harder at my job because I want a raise and a more comfortable life. Does a gazelle have free will? Otherwise, where do you draw the line? Surely low level creatures don't make the decision to engage in cell division
>>24945050
>everything I wrote
Wrong.
There was no content in your religious rambling about the self and consciousness and levels and experience, nothing to address. The proper thing for you to say would be, 'everynothing I wrote'.
For the record, I am >>24942079 >>24943506 >>24944073 and so on
Listen to this song and free your mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQTcRxPsoMo
>>24945103
(Meant to quote >>24943667 in place of >>24943506.)
Do people who don't believe in free will also not believe in spirits or the afterlife in general?
I mean, if we're just chemicals that can't actually make decisions for ourselves, then what happens when we leave our bodies and become a soul? Can somebody explain all the ghosts and demons and other unexplainable shit I've seen all my life?
>>24945103
>religious
Im an atheist
You still havent actually pointed out why its rambling.
I dont care what you have to say unless you can speak in a way that tells me you are interested in a rational conversation and not hand waving away everything Ive said.
You are prejudiced tbqh senpai, you ride on such a high horse you believe that you are above being prejudiced yourself.
Absolutely disgusting, last debate at least the other anon would address the argument at hand.
>>24945143
Yeah. You have misfiring neurons causing hallucinations and delusions.
>>24945068
It is very difficult to explain human thought processes since it is one of the most abstract things in known knowledge. What I mean is do you ever do actions which are against these logical sequences? Actions which do not have your best interests at heart, because 'fuck it'.
Drug addiction seems very unlikely to happen if free will didn't exist, of course some people may need it to cope with their life but I bet that many addicts started on a 'fuck it' reason. A spark which cannot be predicted or controlled.
>>24945190
But me and my family have seen the same things at the same times before
You can't share a delusion
Also how does the "misfiring of neurons" cause objects to go flying off shelves near me?
I mean, you don't have to believe me and I'm not trying to change your view, but how do you explain this shit?
>>24945143
>Can somebody explain all the ghosts and demons and other unexplainable shit I've seen all my life?
>illusions, mirages, false lighting & mental trickery
>I mean, if we're just chemicals that can't actually make decisions for ourselves, then what happens when we leave our bodies and become a soul?
that is the million dollar question obviously we have determined that we are animals and that chemical catalyst fuels everything but we can't measure the intangible.
We can only reason with logic and then the question can still be trivialized to free will? yes, no, or other.
>>24945186
>Im an atheist
Cute.
>You still havent actually pointed out why its rambling.
You're just stringing words together. 'Bbbbbbbbl sss self consciousness provability fffffffffffffh existence hierarchy dogma bbbbbbbbbllllllll explain change fffffffffzz -- discuss!'. You posit nothing, you're just throwing random words around. Adopt a meaningful framework of discussion or get out.
>>24945143
Ghosts/spirits/the afterlife/whatever are not inherently immaterial. It is not impossible that there *is* some material vector of causal change that results in some aspect of a human being affecting some other area of the universe, sooner or later, that just *is* undetected by the current instrument. Just -- burden of proof applies. So there's no point discussing it.
>>24945207
I don't think it's difficult to explain thought processes. I think they usually come from fairly evident instincts of self-interest (even when that manifests itself as altruism).
We're just not gonna see eye to eye on this one. Is there something more? I don't know. But I can't define it, and I don't see why it has to exist.
>>24945235
I don't think that mental illness should even be bothered to be discussed with free will, it just becomes a cluster fuck of contradictions and fallacies on either side.
>>24945266
>by the current instrument
*by the current instruments
>>24945235
>You can't share a delusion
Says who? I can think of loads of psychological factors that can get somebody to agree, even earnestly, with what another sees.
>>24945277
There's nothing wrong with not knowing, after all discussing and debating is what will eventually find an answer scientifically.
>>24945310
In fact, this very experiment is about, strictly speaking, a socially-imposed delusion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
>>24945310
I mean, it's a little more than just agreeing with somebody that you've seen something
like for example
>me and dad sitting in room
>suddenly the nearby lamp's lampshade jerks upwards (it was a lamp that looks kind of like the Pixar lamp)
>out of the wall beside it a large thing comes out of the wall
the only way I can describe it is like a ball of shadow that was traveling through a 3d space
>we both turn and react to it at the same time
I mean, how can it just be one of us simply agreeing that we saw something when we both reacted to it at the exact same time?
We both saw the lampshade inexplicably move at the same time
Don't see how that's mental image or a simple trick of the mind
>>24945266
No, I'll restate what I posit: that there is no reason why, while it certainly is related to consciousness, energy should be regarded as more real and representative of reality than the self and its ability to shape reality.
There is no difference between believing in the "illusion" of free will and believing in an absolute free will, beause the illusion is reality. Calling it an illusion is actually quite sneaky, seeing as how reality is concerned with our experience ultimately, and so anything to that end would never be an illusion.
Here, I hope this is more clear, I will state even more concisely some of the foundations of the argument so you can agree or disagree then we can work from there:
>the illusion of free will exists
>reality is the term to refer to all the perceptions of the conscious self
>>24945454
'Reality is self'? This is your shtick? The one as meaningful as 'bed is lying' or 'sound is hearing' or 'language is reality' or 'numbers are quantity' or 'energy is light'? The typical religious oversimplification ad absurdum of a relationship, which religious people have been desperate (increasingly, one might add) to sell for insight ('on the deeper level, ...') for millennia? Seriously? *Seriously?*
Just leave /r9k/.
>>24945433
Well, let's not say 'a shadow from someplace else'. A sudden release of some gas from the wiring? Burning of something? Or maybe release of something that caused you to black out at the same time? Something like Lake Nyos, on the smaller scale? Note, you're just lying or baiting -- but if you were serious, that's what I'd consider. There are always mundane explanations.
>>24945693
>Note, you're just lying or baiting
I'm really not though, what would I even gain from that
I guess it's a typical response though
and I'm pretty sure smoke doesn't appear as a near perfect sphere that materializes out of a wall but what the fuck ever
>>24945693
>>24945454
In other words, religious retards will never realize that their 'realizations' that 'all that exists are our perceptions' exist only in their heads. That that 'epiphany' refers to nothing. That it describes nothing real. That it is strictly an artifact of a broken brain whose verification faculty, so to say, forgets to fail the assertion 'reality = perception' because it doesn't register that that cliche only rings true because the concepts involved are vague enough and the whole 'rings kinda true and kinda neat, so I see no reason I shouldn't call it true'. It's trash.
>>24945814
>I guess it's a typical response though
That was uncalled for. I gave you not one, but two -- granted, half-assed -- interpretations before I said that.
>>24945693
We're arguing semantics you dipshit. Fuck. JUST, never talk to me again
>>24945856
Don't worry, there will always be demand for anti-intellectual 'objective reality doesn't exist, all that exists is your subjective/our consensual reality' religious crap. Somehow, most people seem comforted by that. You'll always have people to talk to.
>>24945904
>Somehow
Well, not really 'somehow'. 'Objective reality' implies objective truth and falsity; concepts most people would rather forget about. 'Only the subjective reality exists' implies the natural follow-up, '...so there's really not reason that we should argue over right and wrong, because it's all in our heads eventually'. It is as naive as it is common.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained
FWIW, I really enjoyed this book. Though it may just drive compatiblists nuts and be a determinism circlejerk, it does an amazing job of explaining how a rich consciousness emerges from determinist principles
>>24946505
Or let me rephrase: of constructing a framework for how a rich consciousness could emerge with determinist principles. I don't want to oversell it ;D
