Does your dog have free will, Howard? Do you blame and credit it occasionally?

In my opinion forget about what Philosophy has to say about Free Will because its mostly bs in terms of physics understanding of what the hell is happening around us (not all but most of it and its too tiring to pick up what is bs and what isnt). Forget it unless it uses Physics when doing it and states it clearly and then suggesting projects for Physics to explore etc or offering alternatives that do not violate most current Physics even when they are imaginative about future speculative Physics but makes it very clear when talking about such speculative things that start deviating from current Physics.

Also define what the f free is by the way lol. I definitely do not mean free in the sense of lacking physical restraints or coercion by whatever stupid "abusive" human interactions one can imagine. For me all human interactions are restraining and abusive lol and all interactions period on anything.

Free should mean free from influence in the outcome of decision from the rest of the world because this is how most people want to imagine it that they are masters of the outcome, fully owning the entire process. As if in some ideal world there is such thing as a higher level of you that guides the action, isolated from external influence in the level of the decision and accepting the influence only as information but not as the influence that alters the very process of decision too in ways that are not even understood by consciousness as they happen. No such thing exists of course because of Physics and in particular chaos theory and QM.

Words don't mean what you want them to mean.

What do you propose to do with convicts, given that in your world they are blameless?

Cone-headed perspective on free-will ignores what anything but physics and maths has to say about it: two fields of study that in fact could not be any further from subjective experience.

It's like forming a perspective on the existence and nature of musical genius through the study of geology.

Phenomenology (philosophy of subjective experience - e.g. Heidegger, Husserl, Hegel) would surely be relevant to a perspective on free will. As would existentialism (e.g. Camus, Sartre and arguably Nietzsche).

In a way it's like declaring that one can only breath automatically because breathing is autonomic- even though taking a freely-willed deep breath is a certainty when chosen as such.

As I said, I have consciousness and cognition. That is what the bulbous thing that sits upon my neck seems to be for. If I look at my writing and it displeases me, it would be quite odd if I didn't edit or entirely delete it. I've also made eggs that I ended up throwing out because when I tasted them, I discovered that I had over-salted them.

It seems to me that these things are likely due to causes. It is also possible that there is some sort of random aspect to my behavior, but that is worse (as far as being emotionally/philosophically satisfying) than if there are reasons/causes behind how I behave. I'd rather not think of a 7-sigma event happening during lunch!

I agree on an epistemological position that determinism isn't proven (I think it is impossible to prove), but that is far from it being a matter of faith.

I also believe that Zeno is not a dragon, but cannot definitively prove that he doesn't just wear a suit of skin to hide that he is a dragon. To be fair, I'm a bit more confident in the belief about Zeno not being a dragon than that determinism is true for objects my size.

Thats because they are wrong lol! They should mean what i want them to mean because if they mean something else then free will is something all have even the prisoners in fractions when the guards are not looking. It becomes a trivial issue then.

The criminal is not blameless. The criminal is not to blame either. The criminal is participant to the crime the universe created overall. Some of the luck originated indeed in their body. Blame is shared by all actually. This is why how we treat others is very important 24/7.

We have to function in a manner that someone that is the last to pull the trigger or do the last major thing is the most responsible agent. We do that in order to guide that last action to another direction. This is what i call wisdom. We formulate wisdom by having lived and learned the hard way or by imagining the hard way based on other hard ways. Living and behaving a certain way has consequences. If i can convince with education a brain that not killing is the correct approach typically they will try not to kill even when the desire to simplify things is there. If i also add penalties for killing it gets even harder for the morons that do not get it the right way.

So yes there is officially blame because this is how idiots learn but the intelligent people should and deserve to know better.

Here is an experiment i propose.


Give people this test for a great number of times. They have to select from a list of 2 alphanumerical 8 character logins and passwords to join 2+2 or whatever. They are not allowed to create their own, only offered choices.

But give them a list or 10 and ask them to not choose always the first or the 3rd or whatever fixed number to mess up the experiment but honestly choose the first that naturally comes to their mind when looking at them for a few seconds (small number like 5 or less) at the end of time. Tell them to disclose also any reason they did if they started to form one consciously as in a rule of choice as this invalidates the game.

Then repeat the experiment the same way many times later with the exact same alphanumerical set but in different order and establish the statistics about how often they choose the same thing. (repeat also the same thing but in the same order as before exactly as the older choice order as a separate experiment later). If they choose the same thing, since most of us have no idea when we randomly choose something like that so patternless why we do it (unless we wait for many minutes to select with other criteria), i argue they will select more often than 10% the same and if they do a lot more than 10% to make the experiment interesting and not a statistical fluke as easily, then we have a problem here because you have a reason that the brain chooses the same and no explanation why it happens that way because the explanation is subconscious reasons we do not own 100% hence not free in the sense of choice because we are bound by unknown reasons.

I argue also placed in the same room to look unknown girls you focus first typically on the same very often even when dressed differently. There is something less clear (or under the concept of control we think we have) that takes you there.

In matters of random choices i have caught myself many times making the same "random" choice from what girl to focus on to what choice to make in random list to whatever search choice or video to link after another etc. Deja vu moments very often more often in the areas i rapidly select. I am careful not to be biased here as much as i can.

When one selects what food to eat or what color of car you like to select in some ad or what color of pen/pencil to take from a list and you find yourself in a situation you do not always choose the same color but genuinely randomly select one it may prove that you repeat very often the same choice that is not a genuine "love this color" choice but love this color in that moment choice. So maybe the situation and the environment leads to that choice more than you think and it is not really "your" choice as much as you would want to believe.

Also try to see that when i say Philosophy without physic is worthless is because its not possible to trust it in its conclusions because all it takes to f up something is one step that is questionable and the whole thing goes out of the window. So lets keep it real close to the way the actual world works when we try to talk about eg brains. We do not know a lot but at least lets speculate using what we know for the rest that we dont. Because last i checked a brain when you open it in autopsies is just like any other organ totally unimpressive in its form without anything spectacular screaming connections to another dimension or universe or whatever. It is a classical system because each neuron has millions of atoms. Its just the same collections of cells basically as in other animals that locally have some better advantages but came from the same natural factory of the millions of years or trials and errors. Nothing magical happens to the brain because it moves from a mammal ancestor 10 mil years ago to H Sapiens today, only biological improvements. Its all emergent properties and wisdom through civilization that happens to be very interesting today vs where it was 80 mil years ago in dinosaurs.

Try to spot how much bs in terms of physics resides in this page;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

"This article is about the philosophical questions of free will. For other uses, see Free will (disambiguation).
Traditionally, only actions that are freely willed are seen as deserving credit or blame.

Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action.[1] It is closely linked to the concepts of responsibility, praise, guilt, sin, and other judgments which apply only to actions that are freely chosen. It is also connected with the concepts of advice, persuasion, deliberation, and prohibition. Traditionally, only actions that are freely willed are seen as deserving credit or blame. There are numerous different concerns about threats to the possibility of free will, varying by how exactly it is conceived, which is a matter of some debate.

Some conceive free will to be the capacity to make choices in which the outcome has not been determined by past events. Determinism suggests that only one course of events is possible, which is inconsistent with the existence of such free will. This problem has been identified in ancient Greek philosophy,[2] and remains a major focus of philosophical debate. This view that conceives free will to be incompatible with determinism is called incompatibilism, and encompasses both metaphysical libertarianism, the claim that determinism is false and thus free will is at least possible, and hard determinism, the claim that determinism is true and thus free will is not possible. It also encompasses hard incompatibilism, which holds not only determinism but also its negation to be incompatible with free will, and thus free will to be impossible whatever the case may be regarding determinism.

In contrast, compatibilists hold that free will is compatible with determinism. Some compatibilists even hold that determinism is necessary for free will, arguing that choice involves preference for one course of action over another, requiring a sense of how choices will turn out.[3][4] Compatibilists thus consider the debate between libertarians and hard determinists over free will vs determinism a false dilemma.[5] Different compatibilists offer very different definitions of what "free will" even means, and consequently find different types of constraints to be relevant to the issue. Classical compatibilists considered free will nothing more than freedom of action, considering one free of will simply if, had one counterfactually wanted to do otherwise, one could have done otherwise without physical impediment. Contemporary compatibilists instead identify free will as a psychological capacity, such as to direct one's behavior in a way responsive to reason. And there are still further different conceptions of free will, each with their own concerns, sharing only the common feature of not finding the possibility of determinism a threat to the possibility of free will.[6]"

Of course there is plenty more bs here that is without any basis in reality but whatever, see it on your own.

But what a bunch of bs is that about determinism if existed completely not being a threat? How do you get freedom from the inevitable then? Ie if the world was a cellular automaton that is impossible to avoid the future states what the f is compatibilism about then? You have no freedom then, period. You are a machine destined to do the same always.

Now keep in mind i am not suggesting determinism is the answer from Physics. Only pointing the irrational philosophical branch here.

Where on earth in all this is the idea that the determinism is approximate that there is probability from QM and chaos and that Will derives direction from an endless stream of interactions including the ones that created that biological brain that now has that Will. So how on earth is any of this free from the rest of the universe in terms of how it got there and being what it is now.

I suspect the philosophical problem of free will turns on confusion between the two me's. There's the me I imagine from the perspective of viewing me from the outside. Lets call that the "me". Then there's the me I experience being me. Let's call that the "Me". The me includes everything the determinist sees as going into my decision. But my decision is not the same as My decision. The key is that everything that goes into my decision is part of me and everything that is me is included in Me. There is nothing about My decision that's not Mine. I am all the causes of My decision thus I am the causative agent of My decision. I cause my decision and as long as I am free of coercion I do so of my own free will.


PairTheBoard

I have always thought that "free will" simply meant the opposite of "no free will" and that "no free will" was possessed by entities that could not double cross those in possession of perfect knowledge of the future after they were told by them what that knowledge is.

Why isn't it merely that?

In thinking we enter a realm which is common to all men and consequential to this mankind can come together through thought.

Man feels but one's feeling can very well be different than another's given the same circumstance. Feeling is very much an individual matter as it would be folly to attempt to communion with another through my specific feeling. I may feel good about that individual, which can help the harmony, but nonetheless it is only through the thought realm to which we can come together.

The third aspect of the human being is the will which is very much hidden for we can be willful by climbing that mountain or building a bridge but always this will activity is guided by our thoughts. If I move my arm the thought enters into the arena of the will and the arm moves. The will aspect of the process is hidden but I can most assuredly walk within the forest or play a piano, if i am able.

Will, the most hidden, appears to be related to an activity or power such that in archaic times it has been related to fire, the fire within. In modernity the biologist speaks to the mitochondria which are related to as the power generators of the cell, a transformed will perception, if you will.

The above are the souls activities of thinking, feeling and willing. Cognition is also included within the above.

With respect to the above the guide to our willful activity is thinking though feeling is also included but we'll stick to the main point. In modern thought it appears that the thoughts of the day relate to our sense bound activities almost to totality. NO matter how we attempt to leave the earth the nature of our language brings us down to earth even when speaking of the cosmos, the air or the waterfall of our lands. It looks like a language trap though language does evolve irrespective of what each one of believes as the source root of language; the trap is one of our own doing.

Thoughts however, are not of the nature of strict relegation to the earth but of a realm of sense free thoughts and thinking. In thinking and thoughts we are in a realm which is not our creation but to which, through sense free thinking, we can enter . This makes thinking a sense organ of man or exactly a sense free activity, more of an exploration of another realm. I use the word sense in another sense here, which also displays the difficulties with language as man's organ is also of this higher realm.

This is the big jump and so please bear with it but the realm to which we enter is a thought bound realm, a living realm of thought beings with life and and moral tone. In sense free thinking we are immersed within morality as just as we have the laws of nature of our times the laws of nature of this world is the moral; the laws of morality. Please note the words used but used differently for we only have our language which is in movement to get over this difficulty.

A man within this sense free thinking will then carry this thought, obtained within freedom from the earthly, and transpond to his activity of will, which is given in nature and bring forth a free willful activity, or that very activity of free will. The free man understands the nature of his activity and comprehends this future in thought which is accomplished within love for the act, which is the freeing aspect of his activity.

A man does not enter this realm and submit to the idea but comprehends and through love, uncoerced , freely given, brings forth this free activity to his fellow man. It cannot be that the immoral will reign in the activity of this free man for the immoral is very much like a cloud of darkness which would cause the man to submit even if he were not aware of it in full consciousness. A act of love is done in full consciousness for by its very nature any other act is without the realm. The immoral is very much unfree and unloving no matter what the rationalization.

And yes, there is an evolution of morals and morality which is the evolution of man. In the activity as above man becomes an individual personality freed from the strings and tethers of that to which, in a real way, we have been dependent and rightly so. The free will of man is the seed for the future of man, freed from the past which is transformed into the new man, the new earth which also morphs into another state of being. Thanx.

I think that's really pretty good. This knowledge you're being told includes the fact you are being told it as well as any effect that has on what follows in the future you're being told about. It seems strongly intuitive to me that I can double cross the **** out of that future.


PairTheBoard

Trouble is, you could program a computer to ring a bell once every odd hour and twice every even hour; unless it is told that that's the future in store for it, in which case it will do the opposite. It is totally deterministic yet any future you tell it will be wrong.


PairTheBoard

There are a couple of things to say about your point. But not during The WSOP. Perhaps others will.

This is an interesting take but consider what it would entail: Once you inform the unknowing entity what the future is you necessarily change it's brain state and then the knowing entity (you might want to read about Laplace's demon) would have to make an adjustment because the chain of causality which would otherwise unfold w/o having made the information available will have been altered which would change the future rendering the unknowing entity unknowing once again.

Telling you would be a change in your condition t-1, thereby making the possibility of you acting different at t+1.

Making a small change at t-1 making a possible difference in your behavior in t+1 is expected. If I had been poked in the eye a minute ago, I'd probably not be writing this sentence. That isn't free will; that is a change in conditions.

(It isn't an issue that your behavior will be different under the conditions of knowing x vs. not knowing x. That is perfectly expected because that is what the thing that sits on the top of your neck does.)

Good luck at the WSOP

I wish I had read these before posting. We are all saying the same thing...