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You can't really define Free Will as something different and then claim it exists. Free Will has an agreed upon definition. Free Will is the capacity to have d

You can't really define Free Will as something different and then claim it exists. Free Will has an agreed upon definition. Free Will is the capacity to have done differently given the same situation. Free Will is completely absent in a enormous number of circumstances. Are you free to stop understanding English? Are you free to not be persuaded by a logical argument you comprehend? When presented with a donut while on a diet are you free to determine your level of will power to resist? Free will conditioned on chaos theory is just jargon and ventures into "not even wrong" territory. If free will is sensitive to initial conditions then actors evolving in time are not free to choose their trajectories. If your happiness is conditioned on incorrect beliefs about your essential nature and capacities then you should reconcile your beliefs with reality, not argue that the understanding of essential nature is incomplete or wrong.

WhitneyLand 9y ago
Your response may not be as productive as you intended, it sounds a little dismissive. >>Free Will has an agreed upon definition It may have definitions, but used in isolation it's actually ambiguous as hell. Even between science and philosophy the discussions can be pretty divergent. >>you should reconcile your beliefs with reality, not argue that the understanding of essential nature is incomplete or wrong Quite wrong I would say. Our common goal is to interpret our existence in a way that provides the best life possible for us, and hopefully for those around us. If a person can lead a happier life and do the most good for others only by not accepting a scientific principle then I would not discourage them from that. In fact, if I could somehow unbelieve some science and be guaranteed my family would be happier I might consider it. Some of us are just made in a way we can only worship at the alter of objective truth no matter what the cost or the pain. I don't think there's any way to change that, but I certainly don't want anyone to join the club at the expense of the most important goal we have.
- jjaredsimpson 9y ago
  >if I could somehow unbelieve some science and be guaranteed my family would be happier I might consider it I don't see how this can be defended. It commits you potentially dangerous and unethical behavior. Suppose you were to unbelieve, "africans are humans." By not holding this belief you might be quite able to happily own and mistreat slaves. This example is extreme, but the point I'm making still stands. If ones happiness is contingent on holding false beliefs then what value is the happiness. How can self-deception through pleasure seeking mental states be elevated in opposition to engaging with objective reality? Seeking pleasure certainly does not ensure ethical behavior and in many cases explicitly conflicts with acting ethically. >Our common goal is to interpret our existence in a way that provides the best life possible for us I'm very wary of interpretation motivated for pleasure as opposed to clarity and truth.
  - Capt-RogerOver 9y ago
    Your stance is completely true. In theory. In practice the situation is very different, because noone knows (or has any way of knowing) what objective reality is, and whether one's beliefs are "false" or not. Yes, we do have the scientific method and some ways of trying to figure things out, but ultimately it's a question of choice of right mindset. The right framework. An experiment might get some data within a framework. It cannot give you a framework. With the belief "africans are humans" example, we might all agree on that. However on the beliefs like "if it feels hard to learn this skill, it just means I'm not cut out for this" versus "I can learn anything, universe is friendly and will ultimately give me what I need, I'll keep trying to learn this" - something like that will give you hard time if you're doing solely by scientific method and if you think that you can even know whether the belief is truthful to some "objective reality" or not. Both of the stances can be shown to be "truth" or "false", and they they will yield so different results in the personal life of a human that chooses to acquire them. Is believing one of them is self-deception? Maybe it's believing the other that is self-deception? >> I'm very wary of interpretation motivated for pleasure as opposed to clarity and truth. And it's very interesting how that has been working out for you? In most people that I've studied it does not lead to a particularly happy life. (Not just stable, but happy.) I think the core issue here is that in the internal world of humans' souls, there is no such thing as "clarity and truth". It does not work that way. Something like pleasure (but concepts of love, compassion, greatfulness, and others can give even better results) are just better suited. Because in the areas where they are used (the happiness and enlightenment) those things are just easier to find. Concepts of "truths" on the other hand are notoriously elusive and in many ways simply non-existant. What is your life, a tragedy of stoicism? A pointless nihilistic movie? An enlightened miracle? Which one is the "truth"?
  - WhitneyLand 9y ago
    Ignorance is not a commitment to unethical behavior. Ignorance has certainly been used to justify evil but it's arguable how much of that justification was merely a means to an end. For thousands of years there have been people who choose good and people who choose evil. I believe quite a bit of the people who have chosen evil did so while knowing at some level it was wrong, regardless of how much scientific knowledge the had.
Capt-RogerOver 9y ago
There is a lot of discussion about definitions of Free Will. If you define which one of them you are operating upon, then perhaps we can continue discussion. So far I'm not sure what you're trying to debate :/. I am assuming your full definition is not "Free Will is the capacity to have done differently given the same situation.", because that definition has a lot of problems: How do you define "same" situation? In our life there are no two cases which can be called "same situation". There are no 2 same humans, there are no 2 same time instants, there are no two same life situations, etc.? So what is the point of having this definition? At the very least, it's very non-scientific?

WhitneyLand 9y ago

Your response may not be as productive as you intended, it sounds a little dismissive. >>Free Will has an agreed upon definition It may have definitions, but used in isolation it's actually ambiguous as hell. Even between science and philosophy the discussions can be pretty divergent. >>you should reconcile your beliefs with reality, not argue that the understanding of essential nature is incomplete or wrong Quite wrong I would say. Our common goal is to interpret our existence in a way that provides the best life possible for us, and hopefully for those around us. If a person can lead a happier life and do the most good for others only by not accepting a scientific principle then I would not discourage them from that. In fact, if I could somehow unbelieve some science and be guaranteed my family would be happier I might consider it. Some of us are just made in a way we can only worship at the alter of objective truth no matter what the cost or the pain. I don't think there's any way to change that, but I certainly don't want anyone to join the club at the expense of the most important goal we have.

jjaredsimpson 9y ago
>if I could somehow unbelieve some science and be guaranteed my family would be happier I might consider it I don't see how this can be defended. It commits you potentially dangerous and unethical behavior. Suppose you were to unbelieve, "africans are humans." By not holding this belief you might be quite able to happily own and mistreat slaves. This example is extreme, but the point I'm making still stands. If ones happiness is contingent on holding false beliefs then what value is the happiness. How can self-deception through pleasure seeking mental states be elevated in opposition to engaging with objective reality? Seeking pleasure certainly does not ensure ethical behavior and in many cases explicitly conflicts with acting ethically. >Our common goal is to interpret our existence in a way that provides the best life possible for us I'm very wary of interpretation motivated for pleasure as opposed to clarity and truth.
- Capt-RogerOver 9y ago
  Your stance is completely true. In theory. In practice the situation is very different, because noone knows (or has any way of knowing) what objective reality is, and whether one's beliefs are "false" or not. Yes, we do have the scientific method and some ways of trying to figure things out, but ultimately it's a question of choice of right mindset. The right framework. An experiment might get some data within a framework. It cannot give you a framework. With the belief "africans are humans" example, we might all agree on that. However on the beliefs like "if it feels hard to learn this skill, it just means I'm not cut out for this" versus "I can learn anything, universe is friendly and will ultimately give me what I need, I'll keep trying to learn this" - something like that will give you hard time if you're doing solely by scientific method and if you think that you can even know whether the belief is truthful to some "objective reality" or not. Both of the stances can be shown to be "truth" or "false", and they they will yield so different results in the personal life of a human that chooses to acquire them. Is believing one of them is self-deception? Maybe it's believing the other that is self-deception? >> I'm very wary of interpretation motivated for pleasure as opposed to clarity and truth. And it's very interesting how that has been working out for you? In most people that I've studied it does not lead to a particularly happy life. (Not just stable, but happy.) I think the core issue here is that in the internal world of humans' souls, there is no such thing as "clarity and truth". It does not work that way. Something like pleasure (but concepts of love, compassion, greatfulness, and others can give even better results) are just better suited. Because in the areas where they are used (the happiness and enlightenment) those things are just easier to find. Concepts of "truths" on the other hand are notoriously elusive and in many ways simply non-existant. What is your life, a tragedy of stoicism? A pointless nihilistic movie? An enlightened miracle? Which one is the "truth"?
- WhitneyLand 9y ago
  Ignorance is not a commitment to unethical behavior. Ignorance has certainly been used to justify evil but it's arguable how much of that justification was merely a means to an end. For thousands of years there have been people who choose good and people who choose evil. I believe quite a bit of the people who have chosen evil did so while knowing at some level it was wrong, regardless of how much scientific knowledge the had.

Capt-RogerOver 9y ago

There is a lot of discussion about definitions of Free Will. If you define which one of them you are operating upon, then perhaps we can continue discussion. So far I'm not sure what you're trying to debate :/. I am assuming your full definition is not "Free Will is the capacity to have done differently given the same situation.", because that definition has a lot of problems: How do you define "same" situation? In our life there are no two cases which can be called "same situation". There are no 2 same humans, there are no 2 same time instants, there are no two same life situations, etc.? So what is the point of having this definition? At the very least, it's very non-scientific?