[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Is The Free Will Just an Elaborate ...Illusion ?

Hi, folks :

Do tell me about it,please .

See the following on the subject :

Thanks , appreciate indeed.

Cheers

[RD]

Is The Free Will Just an Elaborate ...Illusion ?

Hi, folks :

Do tell me about it,please .

People with obsessive compulsive disorder certainly do not have free will.

This topic has been covered previously in this forum on numerous occasions.
If you want the opinion of the members of this forum on this topic try using the search facility  ...

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?action=search  [ some results attached ]

However given your behaviour in the other thread you started on a similar topic it appears you have no interest in other people's opinions and are simply trolling this forum, ( anyone considering contributing to this thread should bear that in mind ).

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

This topic has been covered previously in this forum on numerous occasions.
If you want the opinion of the members of this forum on this topic try using the search facility  ...

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?action=search  [ some results attached ]

However given your behaviour in the other thread you started on a similar topic it appears you have no interest in other people's opinions and are simply trolling this forum, ( anyone considering contributing to this thread should bear that in mind )

.

(Prior note :
This thread was just inspired by dlorde's relative explanations of the maths of chaos to me ,that's all .
So, i just wanted to hear his own opinion on the subject of free will ,since he said that free will can exist even within a deterministic universe .
Stuff like that .)
So, just have the decency and intelligence to just speak for yourself only ,instead of patronizing , instead of reporting people on this forum , and instead of demonizing the ones who do happen to disagree with you such as myself thus  :
Do not under-estimate the capacity of judgement of these forum members .
They do have minds of their own, remember .
Who said i am trolling ?
Yeah , right , just because i do happen not to agree with you , that's all .
You're the one who just likes to listen to his own music only  , rather than consider what people have to say ,even in the face of counter -arguments or of counter-evidence : self-projections thus , i see .

P.S.: If the mind is in the brain , if reality as a whole is just material or physical ,then , there is no free will in fact  .
But , fact is : the materialist "scientific world view " is false , a fact you can neither understand, grasp ,handle , let alone acknowledge as such , i guess.

Isn't that what all this is about , that's no question, obviously .
Grow up, i suggest thus .

Cheers .

[RD]

Speak for yourself  :
Do not under-estimate the capacity of judgement of these forum members .
They do have minds of their own, remember .

Other members may not be aware of your other thread and that you are simply wasting their time.
You have your own fixed anti-science ideas which you obsessively regurgitate on a science forum.
[ Personally I wish someone had tipped me off that you were just trolling before I contributed to your thread ].

Who said i am trolling ?

I do. If anyone doubts me have a look at DonQ's consciousness thread where there are 33 pages of evidence to support me.

[David Cooper]

If anyone has something new to say about free will that might show it to be possible, it would be worth starting a new thread for it so that people can join in without having to trawl all the way through an old one before they feel they are allowed to join in. I don't think it'll have the legs to get very far though, because ultimately all we ever do is attempt to do whatever we calculate to be the best thing out of the available options, although there can be instinctive overrides which make us do certain things without stopping to think or which prevent us from stopping to think, as when a parent puts him or herself in great danger to try to rescue his/her child - this kind of instinctive behaviour can be selected for by evolution simply by being successful more often than not. Whatever the case though, the process is either going to be deterministic or random, so there is no free will involved at all.

On the trolling issue, at least if a troll is tied up here where no one is reading his posts other than a few psychologists who have an interest in trolls, that is not a bad thing for the world.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Speak for yourself  :
Do not under-estimate the capacity of judgement of these forum members .
They do have minds of their own, remember .

Other members may not be aware of your other thread and that you are simply wasting their time.
You have your own fixed anti-science ideas which you obsessively regurgitate on a science forum.
[ Personally I wish someone had tipped me off that you were just trolling before I contributed to your thread ]

.

Speak for yourself ,once again :
Fact is : you cannot neither tolerate nor handle the fact tha people might disagree with your set of beliefs or opinions you do take for granted as the 'scientific world view " .
Get a life , i must add.
All this nonsense of yours won't make the fact go away that i am so pro-science proper that i would love to see it delivered from its false materialist mainstream "scientific world view " ,as Sheldrake, Thomas Nagel , anti-reductionists and others do by the way

Who said i am trolling ?

I do. If anyone doubts me have a look at DonQ's consciousness thread where there are 33 pages of evidence to support me.

Who cares whether you do think i am a troll or not ? I am not : who the hell do you think you are to try to dictate to people what they should think ?
Passionate discussions can get out of hand sometimes , that's just a human , all too human side of human nature .
Ach...
You will not get any response from me from now on , you do deserve none .

I think you should try to consider a career as some sort of a snitch , working for some sort of materialist inquisitions , or for some sort of materialist thought police: you are perfectly cut for the job  .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

If anyone has something new to say about free will that might show it to be possible, it would be worth starting a new thread for it so that people can join in without having to trawl all the way through an old one before they feel they are allowed to join in. I don't think it'll have the legs to get very far though, because ultimately all we ever do is attempt to do whatever we calculate to be the best thing out of the available options, although there can be instinctive overrides which make us do certain things without stopping to think or which prevent us from stopping to think, as when a parent puts him or herself in great danger to try to rescue his/her child - this kind of instinctive behaviour can be selected for by evolution simply by being successful more often than not. Whatever the case though, the process is either going to be deterministic or random, so there is no free will involved at all.

Please do try to elaborate on that , thanks , appreciate indeed .

That free will might be just  an illusion does make no sense to me whatsoever in fact .

On the trolling issue, at least if a troll is tied up here where no one is reading his posts other than a few psychologists who have an interest in trolls, that is not a bad thing for the world.

Haha indeed .
So, what's that lunatic been making such a fuss about indeed .
If i am a troll , i might be usefull food for psychologists or for others  haha ,and i am not on tv all the time as lunatic fanatics such as Dawkins are : so, i am not hurting anyone.
If i am not , and i think i can say i am not , then , at least , we can try to learn from each other , from the few ones who do participate to these threads of mine at least .

[RD]

Grow up

Get a life

Who else but trolls post infantile phrases like that.

… who the hell do you think you are …

The classic line of those who cannot defend their position: an admission of defeat if ever I heard one.

You will not get any response from me from now on , you do deserve none .

boo hoo [:-'(]

[cheryl j]

In discussions about free will, I sometimes wonder, "Free from what?"

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

In discussions about free will, I sometimes wonder, "Free from what?"

Relatively free from cultural psychological social biological ideological,sub-conscious  ,environmental , nurtural ....factors that do shape our thought , and hence our behavior , relatively speaking

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Is the free will just an illusion ?

Is there a way (s) to track back our decision-making process all the way down to its ultimate roots  ? .The latter that might turn out to be not always deterministic .


That's the question , i guess .

[David Cooper]

Please do try to elaborate on that , thanks , appreciate indeed .

That free will might be just  an illusion does make no sense to me whatsoever in fact .

I don't see the need to elaborate. It's your job to provide an example of how you express your free will. Any example you provide, I will then deconstruct it for you and show that it is not free will at all.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Please do try to elaborate on that , thanks , appreciate indeed .

That free will might be just  an illusion does make no sense to me whatsoever in fact .

I don't see the need to elaborate. It's your job to provide an example of how you express your free will. Any example you provide, I will then deconstruct it for you and show that it is not free will at all.

[/quote]

Ok, let's  start with the obvious at hand , as follows :
I am answering this post of yours , as we speak :
Am i not doing just that via my own free will or free choice ?
Thanks, appreciate indeed.
Cheers and nice week-end by the way : have fun indeed .

[David Cooper]

Ok, let's  start with the obvious at hand , as follows :
I am answering this post of yours , as we speak :
Am i not doing just that via my own free will or free choice ?

You're answering it because you're compelled to go on posting here no matter what. Of course, you could deliberately stop posting in a futile attempt to demonstrate your free will, but that would be dictated by your desire to show that you have free will. You are trapped spending your life posting stuff which is for the most part of very little value (due to an astronomical amount of repetition) to a forum precisely because you don't have free will.

[Edited to add the missing word "value".]

[cheryl j]

In discussions about free will, I sometimes wonder, "Free from what?"

Relatively free from cultural psychological social biological ideological,sub-conscious  ,environmental , nurtural ....factors that do shape our thought , and hence our behavior , relatively speaking

I'm not sure what you mean by relatively. Do you mean completely free, free in certain situations, free if you put conscious effort into changing old habits or ignoring urges? Are you either free, or not free, or can you be sort of free?

To be free of the influence of things you listed above would imply starting from scratch in every situation, not learning from experience, or from teachers or family or society, not being able to remove your hand as quickly from a hot stove in a reflex arc, and having to relearn how to play the piano, that is, having to "think" about which keys to hit  every time you sat down to play.

Humans and other animals seem to have an innate resistance to being either restrained or forced to do something  by someone or something else. That is, I think, an evolutionary trait, since that someone or something may be a predator or someone wanting to force their DNA on you. What's odd is when we turn this desire to not be controlled on some aspect of our selves as if it were some outside influence.

 A friend of mine said he didn't like thinking about the subconscious because he didn't like the idea of some part of his brain that he wasn't aware of controlling him. I said "Ever wonder if the feeling is mutual? Maybe some part of your subconscious is talking to another part and saying 'You'll never believe what that idiot did today. We have millions of years of evolutionary wisdom, but does he listen to us? No, because of some brilliant idea he came up with this morning. I think I'll go all anxiety on his ass. Maybe a nice panic attack would smarten him up, or I'll make him depressed for no discernible reason. He can just sit in his room tomorrow and weep inconsolably, and think about his behavior lately!' "

That may seem  like a ridiculous scenario, but that is how people seem to view things like the subconscious or genetic traits when they discuss freewill, as if they were somehow alien influences on their true self.

[Ethos_]

I'll only post once on this thread, that being done of my own free will. Any further time spent here would be an Elaborate ...Illusion of a worthwhile enterprise!

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Human free will is as real as we are, basta  .
But , if one would believe that the mainstream materialist "scientific world view " is "true " = reality as a whole is just material or physical , then there is no free will indeed .
Reality as a whole is not just material or physical , and hence the 'scientific world view " is ...false , obviously , thus.

[cheryl j]

Human free will is as real as we are, basta  .
But , if one would believe that the mainstream materialist "scientific world view " is "true " = reality as a whole is just material or physical , then there is no free will indeed .
Reality as a whole is not just material or physical , and hence the 'scientific world view " is ...false , obviously , thus.

Maybe so, but if one were genuinely interested in when or where free will occurs, science would be still be a useful tool for narrowing down the possibilities, chasing it into a corner, so to speak. Although, if materialistic findings or methods are always "false", then nothing can be ruled out, and no evidence is reliable in any experiment, and it's back to the futility of "we'll never know."

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Human free will is as real as we are, basta  .
But , if one would believe that the mainstream materialist "scientific world view " is "true " = reality as a whole is just material or physical , then there is no free will indeed .
Reality as a whole is not just material or physical , and hence the 'scientific world view " is ...false , obviously , thus.

Maybe so, but if one were genuinely interested in when or where free will occurs, science would be still be a useful tool for narrowing down the possibilities, chasing it into a corner, so to speak. Although, if materialistic findings or methods are always "false", then nothing can be ruled out, and no evidence is reliable in any experiment, and it's back to the futility of "we'll never know."

[/quote]

There  are no such things such as "materialistic " findings ,as there are no such things such as the materialistic "methods ",  simply because materialism is just a false conception of nature , an ideology , a world view ...that should not be confused with science or with scientific results , let alone with the scientific results regarding the material side of reality , the latter that has been taken by science for granted as the whole real thing for so long now , thanks to materialism thus .

Science must thus stop assuming that reality as a whole is just material or physical , the latter assumption that's just a materialist core belief assumption regarding the nature of reality thus , no empirical fact .

So, reality as a whole should not be reduced to just the material or to the physical by science , including consciounsess, free will and the rest thus .

Free will that's more of a matter of the ...mind thus that's not irreducible to the physical .

Therefore , when scientists do think that the mind is just in the brain, the mind as just a biological process thus ,thanks to materialism thus that does reduce everything , including the mind thus , to just material, physical or biological processes ,  those scientists  cannot but study the mind , and therefore the issue of free will, for example , as just a matter of the physical brain's activity :

I am well aware of those scientific experiments regarding when patients' brains get   scanned ,while those patients are asked to perfom or think about a decision , like raising one of their arms : scientists think they can predict   the specific decision -making of those patients many seconds allegedly before the latter would be aware of his/ her  presumed decision-making in question , when scientists  see that the raising of the arm precedes the firing of those corresponding brain regions involved in that process  : those scientists do not realise the fact that they  do take   the image of that process for its cause thus, by assuming that the firing of those specific corresponding brain regions is the  actual decision -making process in question, while the firing of those corresponding brain regions in question are just the image of that process in fact , the image of the process that does occur always afterwards thus , after the actual cause of the process that precedes it , logically   :

When you do see lightening  happening  in the sky , you do not and should not assume that that in fact actual image of that process of lightening is its cause , do you or should you ?.

Consciousness as a sort of a transmitter might be the one sending its "data " somehow to the physical brain to raise the patient's arm, prior thus to the firing of those brain corresponding regions  thus  :those scientific experiemnts do prove this fact in fact ., which does prove the fact that those scientific experiments are a matter of ...interpretation thus  .

The brain is just the image of the process of the mind thus , not its cause , that's why the arm gets raised before the brain fires : it is in fact the mind thus that causes the arm to be raised , and then afterwards the brain just reflects the image of that mind process of raising the arm .

Scientists cannot thus but misinterpret those scientific experiements ...materialistically , in the sense that the brain causes the mind , not otherwise = a false materialistic belief assumption , no empirical one thus .


Another example :

When i do hear some bad news on the phone i do get moved by to the point where i can feel tears flowing through  my eyes as a result : it is not neurophysiology that causes my feeling of sadness and therefore the flowing of tears from my eyes  , the mind does , and that feeling of sadness provoked by hearing those bad news on the phone thus , via my ear to my brain , that feeling of sadness generated by my mind thus when informed by it through my senses to my brain ,  is the one that triggers tears in my eyes via some sort of a command prompt to my brain ,not the other way around thus , prior to the actual firing of those corresponding brain regions that do trigger physiologically tears in my eyes, i guess  .

The physical brain thus is just the image of the process of the mind , the latter that's the one causing the physical raising of my arm, that's causing the feeling of sadness and therefore the flowing of tears through my eyes .

In short :

The brain does thus not do much in fact  , so to speak , the mind is the one doing almost everything , the brain merely generates the data it receives from our senses to be sent to our consciousness somehow thus , and then afterwards , the brain just receives back the corresponding process of the mind via reflecting its image , an image most scientists take for the cause of the process , thanks to materialism thus .

[alancalverd]

   

Is The Free Will Just an Elaborate ...Illusion ?

More of a pointless philosophical abstraction than an illusion.