Atheistic Materialism Automatically Disqualifies Free Will

Any mechanistic system-derived explanation of "free will" (vague itself) is bound to be dissatisfying. It can also be demoralizing but that's not relevant if your primary concern is truth.

Absolute free will doesn't observably exist, anyway. Everything is limited one way or another. We may imagine ourselves as humans to be mentally more free than other sentients due to our recursive awareness & intellect... but we can't objectively experience their perceptions.

My own feeble human intuition insists that free will exists, that I have it, to an extent, and that it is possible to become both more or less free depending on my choices and outside influence.

This line of inquiry could easily be tied into Yoda's math thread as it pertains to questions of the nature of reality and perception, how they relate, Godel's "decidedly undecidables" within information aggregates, how quantum "events" resolve into a specifiable hierarchy of repeatable physics, ect.

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Well, I don't know what all that is, but frankly, I don't trust Yoda's opinions. Sorry!

To me, this "no free will" thing really does seem like the answer. And I honestly can't believe that I never really realized it, or, at least, bought into it before. I guess it's simply difficult to think that all of your actions are going on without you actually being in control of them. Even during my most atheist of moments, I still thought that I was basically me. Ya know? I had a sense of being SC. I felt like I was this unique being... and I AM... but... I think that I'm really just a thing. Even now, I still have trouble believing it, but I know where that is coming from -- I have been trained, for years and years, to believe that I am a SOUL.

And really, if there IS free will, doesn't that mean we are souls, then? It means there's a ghost in the machine. A soul. And if there's a soul, there must be more to life, which means we'll survive death.

I realize I might sound like I'm being simplistic about all of this, and not caring much about alternatives, but frankly, I'm sick of the alternatives. THIS makes the most sense to me. Everything else looks like hope, wishes, fantasies, etc. Anything to deny that we're robots. Anything to deny that we spend every day -- we have spent every day -- and we going to spend the rest of our days -- basically being a machine that we can't control.

It's a horrific concept if you think about it. It's like being in a trap. But I think that's what it is. Living is a trap. It's a trap you can certainly enjoy -- and if you don't, the only alternative is death -- but it's a trap. It has to be.

HELLO FROM THE TRAP!

How's your traps, guys?

Planet News thinks he's found a hole out of his trap. Ha! There is no escape.

I think I am too frigging complicated and you also to merely be a machine.

I don't think free will is dependent on a human soul in a metaphysical sense.

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No, what you're saying is probably the typical interpretation of what's going on. And even if you grant that we aren't determined by our bodies, which is something basically no one would grant, there is still the aspect of the societal body in which we are embedded and the determining factors there. So the way we are determined is at least two-leveled.

The trouble is this kind of thing...

It draws its strength by playing at a kind of 'harsh wisdom.' A putting away of childish things sort of attitude.

The problem with this kind of rhetoric is that it can be used with anything. It's inconsistent depending on what view is desired for what situation. Some people might find it wishful to think that we are not free. For example, me. I think there is something wishful in thinking that we have no real choice in our lives. Thinking that way envelopes us in a world we can call home. But for me there are choices that can be made that we won't make as a matter of a choice that exists, and we use the excuse of determinism to escape /that/ possibility.

Is it wishful to desire a god? Maybe it is. I often hear that argument used against god -- an appeal to the harshness of reality again the religious 'fairy tale.' But also maybe it isn't. Maybe being judged by a god is a great burden. Maybe it is a nightmare to really believe in god. So exactly what is wishful and childish and pleasant isn't so clear. But there is some kind of appeal to this position that you are willing to accept the 'harsh' option. However, i don't think it really works as a reason. Something basically happened in your life to where that idea works better for you. I don't know what, but it wasn't based in reasons. When I was interested in Deleuze, I thought this too. And I looked for ways of conceiving of a positive vision of that view. In the end, I changed because I don't think it works ultimately. Nothing really changed in my life otherwise.

There's absolutely reasons for why my view changed. There's absolutely reasons for why it now works for me. Obviously, as I've stated, in the past, this way of thinking wouldn't have clicked with me. It would have been too ... hard to accept. Depressing. Life destroying, maybe. Would have driven me insane to believe it every day.

That still doesn't mean I'm wrong, though. I could believe my whole life that if I rode a roller coaster, I would be killed during the ride. Then things could change and I could believe that the roller coaster ride wouldn't kill me - and then I'd ride one and manage to survive the ride. Not really a good example because I'm sure a roller coaster ride actually WOULD kill me (I hate them) but, most likely, it wouldn't. The point is, you can change your beliefs and turn out to be correct.

Now, I think I see what you're saying -- I could be wrong about this no free will thing. And I might be. But should I really spend the rest of my life pondering that and maybe try to adjust to the possibility of free will even more?

It would be a lot better, I think, if there was free will. Because to not have it is, I think, horrendous. But if it's true (that there's no free will), I could imagine humanity adopting a comforting system for people so that they wouldn't turn to despair -- something like, "You never know what amazing things life will bring you. " We already have systems like that, in fact, but they often -- at least to me -- aren't against a background of something that's trying to say, "Be happy FOR LIFE IS NOTHING BUT CHAOS!!!" So, maybe the idea of no free will could be adopted to be something positive. Then maybe it wouldn't be so horrendous.

I like the idea of freedom -- but I think it also comes with its own complications, too. I've spent thirty years believing in freedom. But I think it failed me. Had I always never believed in freedom... my life, I'm sure ('cause I believe in no free will now) would be different. Don't know if it would have been better.

But I also take a metaphysical approach to this idea of no free will right now, too, which I'm absolutely not gonna try to convince to everyone is correct, though I could share it (and I have). My faith -- which I absolutely admit might be something I just need right now, but it could be true -- is that everything happens for a reason, basically. That the universe directs our lives. That the universe directs everything. Thus, I'm here right now believing in all of this for a reason. Thus, you're here discussing it with me right now -- strangely out of the blue, it seems, since you haven't been posting here in awhile. I think there's a purpose for this.

Maybe free will or no free will ultimately don't even matter. We could all be... cosmic creators of the universe or something weird like that. Maybe the "harshness" you speak of is taking it too extreme. Maybe there's an extra, unknown layer of reality of something hard to explain like that. Something that gives reason for the seemingly random. I don't know.

But the "no free will" thing -- I say it doesn't have to be so harsh. And of course, you see, I've brought my own little bag of metaphysical items to attach to it. I used to believe in our lives being fated before -- but with an actual God involved. And with a lot of hope that great things would come my way. And believing in this stuff was WONDERFUL. Wonderful.

Now, I think I can sort of believe in it all again. It's a little harder to feel wonderful about it, but I tell you, the other day, before I made my first post in this thread, I was thinking about it and I was suddenly overcome by such joy that I hadn't really felt in a long time. That inspired me, probably, to post all of this stuff here. Things *clicked*. I'm sure it's not gonna click with everybody. In fact, maybe I should stop before I drive everyone to despair, because probably not everyone could handle this like I can now. But I felt the need to share. And, maybe I was meant to.

I still say I'm right, though. There is no free will.

You're glamorizing the idea of being too complicated to be a machine. We very well could just be machines. All living creatures could be.

Just because you think we're too complicated doesn't mean we can't just be machines. What if a super intelligent alien that could do extraordinary things came to Earth and told us that he knew we were all basically robotic and that we had no free will? You'd realize you're more inferior and less special than you thought.

We have these gifts that nature has bestowed upon us to make us basically rule the world and create this giant civilization, but we could all just be machines doing it. We could all just be nature's toys and robots.

Where's this nonsense thread been all my life?

Nowhere...because it's bollocks.

Love the site but the initial post might well be the reason Yoda abolished negative rep. Madness.

Not interested in a protracted argument either.

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Well, that was a pretty pointless post, Used Future, but I forgive you because you had no choice in posting it.

Sometimes an mad impetuous fool has gotta do what what a mad impetuous fool has gotta do.

I was gonna make a good post here, but my lack of free will caused me to make this one.

Well, whether or not you want to actually argue with it is up to you. But I think the logic is very straightforward, and if there's a real counterargument, I haven't heard it yet.

Wrong.

Here is a lecture by Sam Harris, author of Free Will, the guy who helped bring this insight to me and who is a firm believer in no free will.

WATCH IT.

I listened to him. He didn't convince me. In fact, the reasoning is pretty weaK.

I looked at Yoda's earlier posts. His logic is unconvincing also.

I believe in limited free wiil.

Why?

All I know is that something had the power to exist first.

All of it. Take the serial killer thing. Why is it possible for two people born in the same family with the same experiences to grow up differently, one has a normal life and the other a killer?

Siblings do not have the same experiences! And they don't even get all of the same genes. Oh, please. Not to mention gender differences if one is male and the other is female.

Even if they mostly experience the same things, their mental lives would be different.