If free will doesn't exist...

[EradiatedHaggis]

well one CAN think that, that's what Compatibilists are

essentially some believe that even if you don't have true free will and Determinism (in some form) applies, there's still responsibility beared by the Actor due to previous actions and 'decisions' made. Even if you responded to some external force, perhaps you placed yourself in the place of that force so to speak IOW

I don't agree with it, but there are a lot of people that do

It isnt that one cannot think it, you can think it and still be wrong.

Like if there is no free will, the actor was also not responsible for the previous actions leading up to the wrong since you cannot make a decision if there is no free will.

Determinism means the outcome is already determined...those all actions leading up to it MUST occur. Hard Determinism is even harsher.

 

[Alcibiades007]

Okay, but how does that prove we should be less judgmental based on there not being free will? For every hypothetical you come up with, it's easy to come up with a counter hypothetical.

Just because you want to claim that knowing about a lack of free will should make everyone less judgmental doesn't make it so. I've already told you how I would react, and it's not in the way you're describing.

If your thought process lead to the conclusion that you will still be judgmental that's fine, but you misunderstood the purpose of my examples if you think they demanded counter hypotheticals. Your conclusion that if we accept the absence of free will as some moral compass means we would be absent of action. To which I gave the example of laying in a vegetative state and waiting for the flow. Even then there would be some biological response; if not search for food then at least some thought process.

So the above was never my contention. I'm merely stating that knowing that anyone else(you included) would do the exact same thing if you'd be in the shoes of a perceived idiot might strike some compassion.

Nah, judgement is part of our worldview and informs our decisions free will or not.

I don't think free will is all that important. First, it's almost impossible to define. Second, if it's just the acceptance that things are predetermined by physical circumstances, it still doesn't change that "choice" is the foundation of just about everything: desire, passion, love, morality, etc.

Think of two conditions, in one room we have a bunch of people and poisonous ice cream. All we can do is watch. We can't interfere. So we watch helplessly as people gobble down ice cream and die.

That feeling of helplessness makes us sad, that we couldn't do anything to save these people - they were just predetermined to eat that ice cream.

In the second room, we have the same people and the same ice cream, but this time we can tell them it's poison. Now they don't eat it. Now we had control.

See how that works out? The discussion about free will is always a discussion about control and never a discussion about the fundamental order of things.

We're alive and self-aware, that's something which is truly fantastic.

Expected from your avatar

You're example doesn't enforce free will at all because your decision to help those people was produced by the same 2 things I repeatedly stated to be the only fabric of thought process: the external factors(your past experience of observing the 1th room) and you genetics(generally inclined for compassion towards innocents), neither of which were of your choosing.

And you are precisely right about free will being ALWAYS about control. But factually we are never literally in control. It is only the illusion of free will which feels like we are in control.

 

[BearGrounds]

Who remembers choosing to be themself before they were born? Your hair color, eye color, height, weight, etc.? Your genesis itself was not even a product of free will. It's an illusion, albeit a persistent one.

To me the universe is simply a marvelous mechanism, and the most complex forms of human life, as human beings, are nothing else but automatic engines, controlled by external influence. Through incessant observation I have so convinced myself of the truth of this that I cannot perform any act or even conceive a thought without locating at once the external stimulus that prompted it.
- Nikola Tesla

http://anengineersaspect.blogspot.com/2013/02/life-after-death-according-to-nikola.html

That we cannot see the future, and cannot readily see the puppet strings we hang from, makes free will seem as though it exists, but it does not. We are but cogs in a wheel, pushed and pulled from the moment we're born, until the moment we die.

The only arguable alternative I see to this is that we have an extremely limited free will - a set amount of roads we can choose to walk upon, but we must choose between those given, we do not blaze them ourselves; we only choose which ones to take out of those options already laid out for us. But then it ceases to truly be free will, doesn't it?

 

[Alcibiades007]

Ok so I understand this is extremely counter intuitive at first, but the science is simple overall so a bit of objective analysis might help.

Just a short recapitulation(and reformulation) for people who do actually think free will exists:

-Everything in the universe that happens and will ever happen is just interactions. Basically mathematical equations.
-Thoughts which lead to our actions are nothing more but the product of external factor applied on your specific genotype. Just examples of the equasions I mentioned above.
-To add another thing that needs to be said since determinism was mentioned. In the context of quantum superposition, the fate of the universe since the Big Bang all the way to the Heat Death might be slightly arbitrary, but this doesn't enforce free will at all, just argues against determinsim.

So in conclusion out of all 3 possible options: 1.Everything is set in stone 2.Sometimes a dice is thrown deciding what happens next 3.you are incontrol of your actions

The latter is the only one which is not possible in any context, not even in a religious one.

 

[Phlog]

Shouldn't we be 0% judgmental? The 0 there is put on purpose as emphasis that even the peeps we perceive as the dumbest, cringiest, most obnoxious dudes out there, even serial killers shouldn't be judged. Just dealt with rationally with no hard feelings, so to speak.

Thoughts?

Yes.

One also has to remember that we've evolved systems that rely upon the presumption or experience of having free will. It defines how we treat both others and ourselves on a fundamental level.

So I can have absolute compassion for the murderer at the same time as wishing for a punishment of incarceration with rehabilitation if possible.

That I believe is the most truthful posotpos possible.

 

[minute bull]

Is your point There is no free will so we shouldn't take misfortune too badly?

 

[Swing]

If your thought process lead to the conclusion that you will still be judgmental that's fine, but you misunderstood the purpose of my examples if you think they demanded counter hypotheticals. Your conclusion that if we accept the absence of free will as some moral compass means we would be absent of action. To which I gave the example of laying in a vegetative state and waiting for the flow. Even then there would be some biological response; if not search for food then at least some thought process.

So the above was never my contention. I'm merely stating that knowing that anyone else(you included) would do the exact same thing if you'd be in the shoes of a perceived idiot might strike some compassion.

I never wrote that we'd be without action, just like I never wrote that we'd stop thinking. This is something like the third time you've misconstrued what I've written.

The bolded is inaccurate. That's the problem with the whole idea: we won't all react the same way as someone else just because we're in that person's shoes. And if it's our autopilots leading us to divergent behaviors, then how can you conclude that our autopilots should be leading us to be less judgmental?

 

[punky brewster]

So TS, who or what forced you to start this thread?

 

[Alcibiades007]

Is your point There is no free will so we shouldn't take misfortune too badly?

That's another way to look at it , yes!

I never wrote that we'd be without action, just like I never wrote that we'd stop thinking. This is something like the third time you've misconstrued what I've written.

The bolded is inaccurate. That's the problem with the whole idea: we won't all react the same way as someone else just because we're in that person's shoes. And if it's our autopilots leading us to divergent behaviors, then how can you conclude that our autopilots should be leading us to be less judgmental?

Yes we would, that's the whole point. I'd like to hear how you think you'd do any different than me with my exact life and the same genotype.

 

[Alcibiades007]

So TS, who or what forced you to start this thread?

Experience+genetics. Gonna hit the sack now. Latters!

 

[minute bull]

That's another way to look at it , yes!

How should one become less judgmental without access to free will?

 

[Alcibiades007]

How should one become less judgmental without access to free will?

Post #6

 

[Swing]

Yes we would, that's the whole point. I'd like to hear how you think you'd do any different than me with my exact life and the same genotype.

This is a nonstarter. If I had your genotype then I wouldn't be me. At best you're arguing that, in every circumstance, you would behave the way. But to say that we should be less judgmental because we understand that there's no free will, I'd think that you need to convincingly argue that everyone's autopilot should lead them in that direction.

 

[minute bull]

Upon receiving this knowledge, your brain might produce certain electro chemical reactions commanding you not to be judgmental from now on.

That's one hell of a might.

Isn't "might" an indication of free will? Whether it might or might not depends on .... what? A decision? An impulse? Past experience? Superficial insights from online randos?

 

[punky brewster]

Experience+genetics. Gonna hit the sack now. Latters!

Don't confuse free will with 'unlimited free will' and some sort of universal power. Free will exists in the confines of the physical world and the laws of physics/science/nature etc.

If you're boiling things down to a quantum level where our behavior is merely the the result of innumerable chemical reactions in the countless molecules in our body and brains, then I guess we are merely the physical product of gazillions of chemistry and physics equations playing out constantly.

Honestly, I can't wait until I live in a state where weed is legal. Would make this thread much easier to process.

 

[minute bull]

Honestly, I can't wait until I live in a state where weed is legal. Would make this thread much easier to process.

I'm not sure it would be. I like the argument against free will, especially when it becomes clear they're just talking about Cause and Effect. Is it so outlandish to think that everything we do is based in the context of our environment, both emotional and external, and that nothing can be done outside the parameters of reality? No, that's no surprise.

But what TS is also talking about is value and meaning (judgement), and I suppose the argument here is that without choice there is no meaning, causing the nihilists to lay in their beds dreading a future they cannot affect. "And isn't that freeing?" I'm not sure that's the correct conclusion to be made here, and I certainly don't find it liberating.

Or perhaps, in this case, meaning and value are what determine choice, even though all this might be an illusion. But as Fawlty says it's an illusion that counts so much that it can be taken as real.

...yeah, maybe weed is in order.

 

[Midnighter]

I'm more concerned about free wifi.

 

[punky brewster]

...yeah, maybe weed is in order.

I agree with your closing statement, sir.

 

[badascan]

I've seen horrors, horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that, but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror! Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

The anticipation of negative judgement is a deterrant and a reputation tracker, free will or not.