Free will?

Do we have free choice? Or is everything we do determined by other factors?

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• freewill
• free
• will
• determinism
• philosophy
• freedom

[rnjkings]

Pleased you like it. My (A-level) students took a while to work out why I used the music I did!

[HedgehogRebellion]

@bryanpicchiottino

Our lives are determined by our decisions

Which are determined by our values

Which make up our personality

Which is stored in our pre-frontal cortex

Which is wired by our DNA

Which is bestowed on us by luck.

Comments...concerns...question­s?

[bryanpicchiottino]

@dervish2173 neither. I think i was just pissed off or something. But i personally do not accept free will if you'd like to know.

[dervish2173]

@bryanpicchiottino I'm sorry my English isn't good, is your statement defending determinism or free will?

[bryanpicchiottino]

@dervish2173 Fuck the stoics, and fuck Nietzsche. Determinism and Immoralism are not mutually exclusive, although determinism and absolute morality are incompatible. Our convictions are explained through evolutionary biology and are intrinsic to our humanity, whether or not they are relative. Also, Free Will and Determinism is a false dichotomy. Modern Physics shows that the universe is inherently probabilistic, nevertheless, we don't have free will in the same way a computer doesn't.

[dervish2173]

hard determinists are restricted to moral nihilism. Also if everything is predetermined there is no such thing as chance, luck, choice, good or bad. So what does this mean? This means that it's not wrong to kill, rape or torture people. 9/11 wasn't really a bad thing. Everything that happened, had to happen. There is no point in regretting anything. By understanding this, you become enlightened. You can't stop what's coming so you might as well just relax and try to enjoy your life.

[Jorge007dr]

@GothicWiccan13 Who's controlling you? No one but yourself. Its really irrational and seemingly a weak way to live life by adhering to a statement such as free will. Clearly, we fail class in school for example, beacause of our irresponsibility. In the context of God, if there was no free will, everything is predestined and moving with God's pace regardless of wat effort we try to input, it means there would be no need for prayer. Please dont live on the mind-state of no-accountability.

[Jorge007dr]

@DuhIdiot1 No, by God's providence I mean what he has planned for the world. Providence, despensation. Meaning, God's Will in other terms. What God wants to be accomplished. And you make a fine point, if you were to want to kill smeone tomorrow, kill them, and stand in court and say "Thats not my fault, I have no choice in what i do. Some God made me do it, so therefore I cannot be indicted." That will make no rational or moral sense. We are all held accountable for the choiced we make.

[DuhIdiot1]

@Jorge007dr By "God's providence" do you mean his infallible foreknowledge, as I was discussing with u3190? If so, then the question is simple: if God, right now, thinks that I will kill somebody tomorrow, then how can I fail to kill that person without God being wrong? If I can't fail to kill them, then how can I be said to have a choice in the matter? If I can't be said to have a choice, then how am I morally culpable?

[DuhIdiot1]

@Jorge007dr I don't need to be mind controlled to have my actions determined. If what I'm typing is the necessary result of the arrangement of my brain, then I couldn't be doing anything other than typing this right now, despite my clear but wrong impression that I'm doing it optionally by choice.

Now, there are definitions of free will compatible with that scenario. But the idea of will as some magic bypass of physical causation is out the window if the brain is just chemistry.

[Jorge007dr]

@DuhIdiot1 Point is everything that happens is caused by human will and God's will together, not God just pointing fingers and us moving as if we're robots. Logically and rationally, its incoherent. You right now are not typing to me cuz ur being mind controled or something, u have ur choice of doing what ur doing right now. And even when it comes to God's providence, it is only accomplished once a human has set a cnodition from his own heart to complete it, then a foundation is laid.