Jump to content

Is freewill a hoax?


Jesse Screed

Recommended Posts

On 3/20/2020 at 10:52 PM, Starise said:

I had hoped it wouldn't go this way.

I attempted to rationalize some of what you said Tezza and it just doesn't compute in the real world. This isn't "us" against you. It's just that almost nothing you say makes any sense. I always find it amazing how someone who likely has far less life experience seems to know just about everything. Almost reminds me of the types of people who go off, adopt followers and start cults. It seems you are against pretty much all established norms and point to many of them as the reasons for our societal problems.  No human system is free of problems but they work good enough to have this thing we call a society.

I would love to see your alternative lifestyle that excludes anything that has maybe worked for the last several hundred years. 

I dunno, what does that look like? You could go to the jungle and live with your relatives. Make your own clothing etc.

Nothing I say makes sense? how about an example, I'll see if I can make it make sense for you. Please do not comment on my life experience, you know nothing about me. Why do you think I know everything? I have never made that claim. A few personal jabs but nothing to contribute to the conversation. Established norms are dependent upon the society you live in, Americans believe in Christianity and Capitalism, the Chinese believe in Confucius and Communism. Very different yet both would interpret living in their societies as normal. I live in Australia, similar to America but less emphasis on religion and more socialist in it's welfare, healthcare and industrial relations policies. Suits me fine. You seem to like the norms in your society but I bet there would also be many who don't, and many who are trying to change it for the better, not just for themselves but for others as well. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Tezza said:

Nothing I say makes sense? how about an example, I'll see if I can make it make sense for you. Please do not comment on my life experience, you know nothing about me. Why do you think I know everything? I have never made that claim. A few personal jabs but nothing to contribute to the conversation. Established norms are dependent upon the society you live in, Americans believe in Christianity and Capitalism, the Chinese believe in Confucius and Communism. Very different yet both would interpret living in their societies as normal. I live in Australia, similar to America but less emphasis on religion and more socialist in it's welfare, healthcare and industrial relations policies. Suits me fine. You seem to like the norms in your society but I bet there would also be many who don't, and many who are trying to change it for the better, not just for themselves but for others as well. Nothing wrong with that at all.

I don't think your examples were really persuasive enough and like a few others here, can't understand why you sidetracked it with origins and such.  You make these all inclusive statements and make it seem that everything is either one way or the other when there are often alternate ways of seeing the same things.Your statement that I haven't contributed anything to the conversation is dismissive at best. You don't get to decide what is or is not important to this conversation. For you yes, for the rest, that's up to them not you. I have valid points if you really read what I said.

Please explain how the country a person lives in and the system in it has anything to do with the topic of this thread? Free will. Thanks.

 

 

 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Tezza said:

Nothing I say makes sense? how about an example, I'll see if I can make it make sense for you. Please do not comment on my life experience, you know nothing about me. Why do you think I know everything? I have never made that claim. A few personal jabs but nothing to contribute to the conversation. Established norms are dependent upon the society you live in, Americans believe in Christianity and Capitalism, the Chinese believe in Confucius and Communism. Very different yet both would interpret living in their societies as normal. I live in Australia, similar to America but less emphasis on religion and more socialist in it's welfare, healthcare and industrial relations policies. Suits me fine. You seem to like the norms in your society but I bet there would also be many who don't, and many who are trying to change it for the better, not just for themselves but for others as well. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Red herring. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You go get him Starise 😉 you are on the right track ...he is using an Ad hominem type of smoke screen in his argument

 

Ad hominem

Perhaps the most infamous among the fallacies is the argumentum ad hominem. The principle is quite simple. If you are assessing the merits of someone’s argument, you should not attack his or her personal background or motives. If you play the man instead of the ball, you are guilty of ad hominem reasoning. But are things so simple?

Let’s trot out the Fallacy Fork again. If your ad hominem argument take a deductive form, then of course it is invalid. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Take this argument: “Researcher A is in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry, therefore it follows that A’s study is flawed”. If the “therefore” is intended to be deductive, then clearly the argument is invalid. But how often do you encounter ad hominem arguments in this strong form?

that excerpt was from a paper  called  the  fallicy fork

https://maartenboudry.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-fallacy-fork-why-its-time-to-get.html

another example of that whole type of approach ...

Are Logical Fallacies Useful 

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/are-logical-fallacies-useful/

 

or for those that don't feel like reading all that $hit

Logical-fallacies-%E2%80%93-tools-to-deb

carry on

Kenny

 

 

Edited by kennywtelejazz
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, kennywtelejazz said:

You go get him Starise 😉 you are on the right track ...he is using an Ad hominem type of smoke screen in his argument

 

Ad hominem

Perhaps the most infamous among the fallacies is the argumentum ad hominem. The principle is quite simple. If you are assessing the merits of someone’s argument, you should not attack his or her personal background or motives. If you play the man instead of the ball, you are guilty of ad hominem reasoning.

 

I knew it wouldn't be long before my old mate Kenny turned up to stick the boot in but what your saying is not factually correct. It's the other way around, I am the one that has been personally attacked. If you read the thread, you would see this. It's pretty obvious really. I know full well that what I am saying may not be popular amongst some but that doesn't mean it's not true.

Edited by Tezza
Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Tezza said:

I knew it wouldn't be long before my old mate Kenny turned up to stick the boot in but what your saying is not factually correct. It's the other way around, I am the one that has been personally attacked. If you read the thread, you would see this. It's pretty obvious really. I know full well that what I am saying may not be popular amongst some but that doesn't mean it's not true.

Let's face it Pal , you seem to like to stir the $hit up where ever you go . You recently tanked one of my threads with your self serving BS .

For the record ... I have read this thread   and I can tell you this from what I have read so far .

There is a very big difference between free will making informed logical  choices VS   self will run riot .

If you don't know what I'm talking about here It may be helpful  for  you to seek out the wisdom to know the difference .

Now that we have had this conversation ,  why don't you do us all a favor and stop playing the victim here . 

Get off the cross we need the wood .

Kenny

Edited by kennywtelejazz
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, kennywtelejazz said:

Let's face it Pal , you seem to like to stir the $hit up where ever you go ..OH BTW I have read this thread   ...

Say why don't you do us all a favor and stop playing the victim here .  Also while you are at it  ...Please  get off the cross we need the wood .

Kenny

Your no slouch with the mouth either Kenny, so don't preach to me. Please do not make this about us, it's like a broken record. Your bigger than that Kenny, quite a lot bigger from what I know ha ha, sorry couldn't resist it. Not playing the victim, just pointing out that I have also unfairly taken some blows.

And where would this forum be without robust debate. Everyone just agreeing nicely with everyone else would turn it into a tasteless, odorless blancmange

Edited by Tezza
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Starise said:

I don't think your examples were really persuasive enough and like a few others here, can't understand why you sidetracked it with origins and such.  You make these all inclusive statements and make it seem that everything is either one way or the other when there are often alternate ways of seeing the same things.Your statement that I haven't contributed anything to the conversation is dismissive at best. You don't get to decide what is or is not important to this conversation. For you yes, for the rest, that's up to them not you. I have valid points if you really read what I said.

Please explain how the country a person lives in and the system in it has anything to do with the topic of this thread? Free will. Thanks.

 

 

 

From my reading of the entire thread, there seems to be an abundance of opinions, however it is clear to me that my contribution is overly verbose. There is a reason for that. I am currently on a number of other discussion threads battling to take control of a political party and we are discussing issues related to party direction, some of them are cross matching with this discussion which is confusing me.

When some others think about free will they think about a well functioning human making good or bad decisions and taking responsibility for those. When I think about free will at the moment, I think of a quadriplegic on a bed or a Schizophrenic having an episode. I don't like the term "free will" because I would never use that term with clients and the use of that term to me signals a lack of empathy for those in difficult circumstances not under their control. Almost dismissive of those in difficult circumstances.

The ability to exercise free will to me, rests on a persons situation in life firstly, but I would prefer to refer to that as their "decision making capability". That can change at any time for anyone. The quadriplegic has severely limited "free will" or decision making capability. With the Schizophrenic having an active episode, they must have pretty much all of their free will taken from them and decisions managed by others or they could be a danger to themselves or others. Given that any of us at anytime could end up in these or similar situations then we don't really have free will because we can't control it. If one doesn't have it, none of us have it.

My questions about origins related to trying to determine if someone was religious or not. If they are religious then the term "free will" can be commensurate with that so that puts it in a different perspective. Where a person lives, their culture, impacts not just on their ability to exercise free will but also on what they would regard as good or bad decision making. This would be influenced by their faith and culture etc One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, kennywtelejazz said:

You recently tanked one of my threads with your self serving BS .

 

You edited your post to include this. Can you tell me what thread this happened in? I would like to have a look to see if I have over stepped the mark. If I have, I will acknowledge and apologize.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

From my reading of the entire thread, there seems to be an abundance of opinions, however it is clear to me that my contribution is overly verbose. There is a reason for that. I am currently on a number of other discussion threads battling to take control of a political party and we are discussing issues related to party direction, some of them are cross matching with this discussion which is confusing me.

I think I might have done similar here because when these threads start to get so long I loose track. Subjects tend to get mixed sometimes. Admittedly I also started to veer toward "Ad Hominum" because of some other things you have said in other threads.

Quote

When some others think about free will they think about a well functioning human making good or bad decisions and taking responsibility for those. When I think about free will at the moment, I think of a quadriplegic on a bed or a Schizophrenic having an episode. I don't like the term "free will" because I would never use that term with clients and the use of that term to me signals a lack of empathy for those in difficult circumstances not under their control. Almost dismissive of those in difficult circumstances.

You are really preaching to the choir here. I just very recently had to make the tough decision to have my dad unhooked from life support. He was on pure oxygen because his lungs didn't have the capacity to keep him alive. Long story short we left him hooked up for a long time. The outlook was pretty bad. He would have been hooked up for life with a hole in his throat and an air tube in it. He had to be drugged to keep from pulling the tube out. The drugs had him "under" most of the time.

He wasn't really living and he couldn't live unless he had the tubes and machines.  We knew what HE wanted to be unhooked because he had the free will to make that choice and we complied with what we knew he would have wanted. If you don't want to call it free will, then simply see it as will.  We all have it and it can be further reaching than you might think. Not necessarily tied directly to physical function. Most people don't want to die, so that process is against pretty much anyone's "will".My whole argument has been that everyone has a will and as such it is a "free" will. None of the people you work with want to be where they are. None of us are wizards capable of waving a wand and changing our circumstances immediately. The will is only the engine that drives the machine.

Quote

My questions about origins related to trying to determine if someone was religious or not. If they are religious then the term "free will" can be commensurate with that so that puts it in a different perspective. Where a person lives, their culture, impacts not just on their ability to exercise free will but also on what they would regard as good or bad decision making. This would be influenced by their faith and culture etc One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.

This is where we will part ways big time. This is a larger subject than we could include in this thread. In a nutshell the purely naturalistic view is built on ideas that change almost daily. For one thing you have an  establishment scientific community that have, over the years, entrenched ideas that need to be redirected. Any scientist who falls outside of that establishment mindset is probably losing his of her job. There's a lot of pressure in the scientific community to follow that "dogma". The main  problem is that some of these "theories" have been taught as fact for so long that to admit the science has changed would look very unprofessional and frankly make a few eat their inaccurate studies. They won't do that, so they keep rolling out the same BS year after year because they like it and it fits well with their exclusion of the big G in anything they do. Science is science, doesn't matter about where you live or your culture upbringing or anything else. Does theology lead to science or science lead to theology?  If one study leads into another study, what is the harm in that? The scientific community is entrenched in "in the box" isolationist thinking. We all HAD to come from a little microbe with NO intervention. Even though they can't prove any of it. If you bought into that thinking , then yes, I put you in that group.

And this is probably at least part of the debate. You will come to the end of YOU. We all will. If you haven't yet I'll be very surprised. Partial explanations only pacify temporarily. If you think you were designed ( you probably don't), but let's just say "if" you believed this, then it makes perfect sense to seek out the designer when you come to the end of you. It makes even more sense to seek a designer BEFORE you come to the end of you. If you had a designer you might be able to communicate with said designer. Don't most network computer programmers make machines that can talk to one another? How does free will play into this?  Because when you come to the end of you, you still have a choice. That communication can make a huge difference.

Edited by Starise
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Tezza said:

When some others think about free will they think about a well functioning human making good or bad decisions and taking responsibility for those. When I think about free will at the moment, I think of a quadriplegic on a bed or a Schizophrenic having an episode. I don't like the term "free will" because I would never use that term with clients and the use of that term to me signals a lack of empathy for those in difficult circumstances not under their control. Almost dismissive of those in difficult circumstances.

The ability to exercise free will to me, rests on a persons situation in life firstly, but I would prefer to refer to that as their "decision making capability". That can change at any time for anyone. The quadriplegic has severely limited "free will" or decision making capability. With the Schizophrenic having an active episode, they must have pretty much all of their free will taken from them and decisions managed by others or they could be a danger to themselves or others. Given that any of us at anytime could end up in these or similar situations then we don't really have free will because we can't control it. 

Irrelevant.  If the highway department blocks off a road,  that doesn't mean the road doesn't exist.  If some form of disability or external restraint  interferes with the excersise of one's free will, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. 

 

8 hours ago, Tezza said:

If one doesn't have it, none of us have it.

Black & white thinking. 

 

8 hours ago, Tezza said:

My questions about origins related to trying to determine if someone was religious or not. If they are religious then the term "free will" can be commensurate with that so that puts it in a different perspective. Where a person lives, their culture, impacts not just on their ability to exercise free will but also on what they would regard as good or bad decision making. This would be influenced by their faith and culture etc One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.

Again,  irrelevant and black & white thinking.  

Religious and  belief/ nonbelief  (for lack of a better word) in evolution is not an either/or  proposition. 

"Religious " encompasses a pretty broad spectrum. There are religions which posit free will and those which deny it. Religions which posit a single deity, a plurality thereof and even those which have no recourse to such.

Even within Christianity,  the existence of an omnipotent,  omnipresent and omniscient God has been used to argue for absolute determinism, for absolute free will and for everything in between. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't agree with anything you have posted there Byron. I wouldn't describe my comments as irrelevant, they absolutely are relevant to the topic thread title. Your reference to the highway is flawed, if the road is permanently blocked off then it really doesn't exist anymore to the driver. Your saying free will still exists even if you can't access it, the whole point of free will is to be able to access it, if you can't then you don't have it. I don't see black and white thinking either. What I mean is if one doesn't have it, then we all have the potential to be that one, we all can be subject to that event beyond our control, therefore none of us truly have it. That's not black and white thinking, it is an observation based on logical extrapolation. We know if one person can get COVID-19 (an event beyond our control) then all of us can get it, therefore none of us are immune to it. By religion, I mean organized religion. There is a relationship for example, between Christianity and the term "free will". People may argue for the existence of free will because they are a Christian rather than because they have made an assessment by themselves based on their personal interpretation of the evidence in relation to free will.  Thereby not really exercising their free will to assess the issue of free will.

Some might say "I am a Christian and God says we have free will, I believe in God therefore I believe we have free will". I don't have a problem with this, the person is being open  and transparent about their underpinning beliefs. I may not agree with it, but I won't argue with that person because they are highly unlikely to change their views and their views can be seen in that light which might have relevance or not, depending on the setting. Others won't make their underpinning beliefs transparent, for example, that they are a Christian, and instead, ridicule, demean and belittle those who oppose them and provide misinformation, disinformation and deliberately confuse in order to try to sway the issue into line with their beliefs. Smoke and mirrors. They are not really expressing their personal free will but rather working as a hidden agent for an organization. I am not attacking Christians specifically, just using this as an example. Others may use the same mechanisms just to win an argument, they just want to win, their motivation is ego based. They are not exercising their free will either, just reacting mindlessly to an emotional drive to beat someone. A pissing contest. I don't respect this approach, it turns everything into a mess.

That's what I am dealing with at the moment in this political party, people with vested interests using smoke and mirrors to try to get into power, and then when they are in power, their true motives are expressed. Not just religious people but people with an agenda to ultimately direct Government funding to their personal businesses. People with hidden political agendas etc. However what surprised me was the egotistical and narcissistic people. They just want a title for their name and power over others. No plan, no hidden agenda, just a title, power over others and recognition for themselves. These people circulate around the political system joining different parties at different times trying to attain power. It's no wonder that our political systems are in such a mess. Are these people really exercising their free will or just acting as agents and emotional automatons, merely responding to external or primitive drives. Some of them are not even aware they are doing that.

If people are not even aware of why they make the decisions they do, how can they have free will.

This is too serious and too much for the coffee house, and I have had more than my fair say. Some of my posts were a bit dogmatic but this is the coffee house where normal posting rules seem not to exist, it's different upstairs. An argument over free will can go on forever, therefore, I am well and truly out of this thread.

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...