Freewill

[Snotty]

its free will in that we can consciously overide our unconcious reaction. The question I have is un-exceptional every day life, how much do we let our unconcious do the driving? or how often do we give to our unconcious what it demands.

[Berzerker]

Your example only shows that the scope of possible reactions to a situation is larger than pure passions would let. It isn't a "demonstration" of free will.

Then what is it? That scope of possible reactions is made larger by the options created by freewill.

[BeBMan]

It was pre-determined that they go into that house.....or not

[Agathon]

The notion of Free Will is at odds with the mechanistic explanations that underly our thinking about how stuff works.

If we faced up to the fact that we are wholly material beings and jettisoned the religious crap, this discussion would be unnecessary.

Free Will doesn't make any sense in any case. Human beings are largely predictable. If our wills were truly free, our choices would be random and chaotic.

Luke Rhinehart wrote an amusing book about this notion of surrendering yourself to randomness as real freedom.

[Al'Kimiya]

The outcome of every choice is predetermined from context. Free will is ignorance to the illusionary nature of choice and thus a prerequisite for sanity.

[BeBMan]

What means "wholly material beings"? What's with ideas, thought, (self-)consciousness?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by BeBro
What means "wholly material beings"? What's with ideas, thought, (self-)consciousness?

To the best of our knowledge, these are brain states.

If you ask me, and I've been verging on this for a while, I think eliminativism is the future. Pretty heretical, but I'm almost convinced that it's right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminativism

The old jokes stand. Like the one about Paul and Patricia Churchland having hot sex and he turning to her and asking "How was it for me?"

[Berzerker]

Free Will doesn't make any sense in any case. Human beings are largely predictable. If our wills were truly free, our choices would be random and chaotic.

You prove my point, people are largely predictable, not entirely predictable. And our free will exists within a context that guides us toward certain paths, but paths we choose between. Free will does not preclude instinct, nor do instincts preclude free will.

[Kuciwalker]

I think people should be forbidden from creating threads on topics that have been debated to death using a nonsensical stock argument in the OP...

... dammit this would kill the OT.

[Cyclotron]

We can never know.

End of thread.

[Solly]

"The notion of Free Will is at odds with the mechanistic explanations that underly our thinking about how stuff works.

If we faced up to the fact that we are wholly material beings and jettisoned the religious crap, this discussion would be unnecessary."

Explain consciousness with a material, Newtonian explanation.

[Fake Boris]

Aggie hits the nail on the head. There isn't even a debate to be had on this.

[Arrian]

I find the notion that we don't have free will repulsive, and I'm an aetheist. My feelings on the matter may be irrational, but I don't care. I choose to believe that I can make my own choices in life.

-Arrian

[Caligastia]

If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I think people should be forbidden from creating threads on topics that have been debated to death using a nonsensical stock argument in the OP...

... dammit this would kill the OT.

Unfortunately, just as most of us are not privileged to have as many bathrooms as you have, neither are most of us as divinely wise as you are.