New Discovery

Is that not dependent upon mood or belief of what could be the “right” choice of which one will return a greater satisfaction?

When I am picking between donuts or cookies (I love both) I take into account what mood I am in, not so much a struggle of not being able to choose due to liking them both equally. Or how about how I love Italian food but also love Mexican food, mood plays a role in determining which one we choose and which will be “more fulfilling” based on what makes one salivate more in the present moment.
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You might be in a mood to have cookies but think that it makes you fat so you believe that it is better to go with donuts. You want both options equally at the end when you consider all circumstances. This is a situation that mood or belief alone cannot move you to pick up the option you want so you have to decide freely.
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Peacegirl: Mood or belief are not necessarily the only driving force that determines preference. One of your reasons for not eating the cookies (although they’re your favorite) is because your little sister loves them too and there’s only one left, so it gives you greater satisfaction to save the cookie for her rather than eat it yourself. There is no free choice even when we are choosing between items that would both be satisfying.

It’s to an extent, it has limits if anything. Will is never free, why we must practice using it, to make the /right/ choices, otherwise we end up regretting sometimes. If it is at all limited then it is not free, it is on multiple levels, I don’t see how it isn’t.

It’s a pitiful thing to see so few people who have ever met a free man, or who are free themselves.

Those that have never tasted freedom in their lives, are so desperate for it, obviously… (the op)

No such thing as full fledged freedom, we are servants of the subconscious through micro to macro, it’s that simple to be honest. One works to live otherwise they die, that isn’t freedom. That’s a wall. Choice is limited.

Just because your choice is limited, and you are not free, doesn’t mean it’s the same for everybody else.

Some men are free. Don’t see many around here, though.

How are you “free”? Genetically bound and also bound to archetypes consisting of environment. It’s How it works with the human mind. You are human, nothing above and nothing less than me.

You trying to say you are unattached as in the philosophy of Buddhism?

I see people procrastinate decisions until they can no longer make one all the time. Until we get ‘like’ meters, I will assume that those who choose, preferred one option, and those who didn’t had the exact balance of fears and desires and couldn’t move. LOL.

Mistress or wife. Oh, I choose both says man X.
Or he keeps putting off deciding, then has a heart attack at 40-

Some people roll dice when torn.

Anyway, there are always third options.

I find it hard to believe that with complicated creatures like us it happens more than once in a hundred lifetimes that the actual levels of desire are absolutely equal.

In fact I think that idea is funny.

And still the situation often halts.

“Not choosing” is also a choice. It’s the third option in the given example.

My hope is that we could beyond the debate over free will. We don’t have free will but that does not mean prior events are responsible for our choices, as the standard definition of determinism often implies. That’s inaccurate which creates a false dichotomy and why compatibilism came about, which is also inaccurate. I tried to explain the reason man does not have free will, according to the author of Decline and Fall of All Evil. His definition is spot on. I understand that it’s unusual for someone to actually come online and make serious claims, but that’s exactly what I’m doing, which is why I titled this thread as I did.

Well, sure. I was pointing out the absurdity of his argument. This equibalanced human who simply stops, like a robot in an old film faced with a paradox. And not choosing does nto mean there likes were equal. It could mean anything.

But his post seemed to be arguing that we always choose and this shows that even with equal desires we can still choose. But there is no way to know this. Perhaps when we choose between to options it shows that we had a preference for one that was stronger. When we don’t it shows that we have a determined default not to choose but to go and do other things.

His scenario is impossible to show actually exists and does nto contradict determinism.

If you really believe you are not free, then you should also realize that there would be no way for you to know if your reasons for thinking you are are 1) rational 2) univerally applicable. You might simply be compelled to think your arguments made sense and applied also to other people by qualia.

Some people roll dice because that is an aspect to their personality, not because they have the freedom of choice to do so… we’re bound by who we are and I wouldn’t have it any other way. What we learn shapes our picking. We only have freedom to pick from the choices available based on preference/personality, we don’t get any and every choice, which does that not inhibit what “freedom” means? If someone rolls a dice they let the dice pick for them, that’s not free will, it is just another method of making a choice based off of belief and randomness. There is a difference between having no freedom at all and being able to shape yourself freely and fully, we’re caught in the middle just like we are with chaos and order, existence is the balancing of duality. For the most part we pick what is to our greater satisfaction, if one does not make a choice is that too not apart of their personality? That’s a form of pessimism, not choosing in fear of making the “wrong” choice. If these weren’t traits of personality, decision making and being then why have, opportunists, realists, pessimists and optimists?

As far as I can tell you are disagreeing with the person I was disagreeing with. Not exactly the same way I was, but what you are saying does not contradict what I wrote.

You are misappropriating the definition of “free” in this context. No one is saying that it isn’t better to have more choices. Regardless of having very few choices available to you, or 100 choices, does not negate the direction you must travel which, based on your heredity and environment, COMPELS you to choose the best possible option of the choices under consideration.

Regardless of the perception for believing in free will it is a superficial feeling yet our entire justice system is based on the belief that we could have done otherwise. Once it is recognized by science that man does not have free will (which is already occurring) we need to follow this truth to see wherever it leads, which this author has done. That’s what this discovery is about. Through the extension of the knowledge that man has no free will and is therefore not to blame, we are able to make leaps and bounds in progress as it relates to war, crime, conflicting goods, politics, government, and poverty worldwide.

I feel it is mainly just a mis-use of semantics to be honest. It’s like a house, we’re “free” to go into our bedroom sure, the house is the way it is due to personality, we pick based off personality and satisfaction, the house is our limited choice in which room we may sleep in, can you go over to your neighbors house and sleep in his room? Without a consequence? A (lower satisfaction), so if so bound by choice in multiple aspects, where does “free” come into play? You decide to sleep on your couch versus your bed, why? A preference.

Ultimately I am on the side of a will not being free, but still having a will to choose based on preference. Just one bound to unique diversity of being, being stemming from environment, genetics and what is or what was.

And that '‘best’ choice brings in the obvious conflict between objective/subjective criteria, as a method of differentiating the preformance with the performance.
In fact, the choice it’self presents the very basis of the arguability of determination. The best choice may not be on a level course, for that reason, infecting the plane of argument with the reasoning of the choice.

Here the best choice can only be thought in terms of what is reasonable, what is available, even of performance which can not adequately adequately be divorced from the preformance.

For these reasons and for other issues of affordability, capacity , the -best choice may never be completely gotten at, and here I so agree with Iambig’s arguments.

Usually freedom is merely an assertion, such as, ‘at the time, I thought it was the beat option’ But, does that take away freedom in a general sense, even if the apparent and objective notion of it have not been differentiated?

Therefore heredity and the environment can not be interpreted as
in inter/interpersonal indexe in appraising the continuum of freedom, determination and validation.

For instance the abandonment of drastic psychiatric methods such as psycho-surgery, reduced to chemically induced drugging ; invalidated psychoanalysis on the political ground by ‘democratic shifts’, wherein, the methodology has contributed to the entropic nature of that political shift.

Philosophy itself has reacted to the psychological diffusion, by the phenenological reductive epoche, seeking an eidectic transcendental reduction.

Can freedom be found in a assumptive
epoche of existential despair per and through role playing and gesturing? Seeing Zizek lecture, such an affect may be inferred. Does the modern philosophy not.convey this sense for the sensible? And revert, perhaps with undo, but understandable ostentation to a performative transcendance?

I think the notion of a psychology of.philosophy is apt here, this being a philosophy forum, and is applicable.

That’s correct! We are bound by our genetics and environment (which is very diverse) pushing us in the direction of greater satisfaction. That does not mean we are always satisfied by the limited options we have been given. Right now, I am just trying to establish the invariable law that man’s will is not free since we are never given a “free” choice. If people can accept the undeniable proof given by this author, even temporarily, I can move forward to show why this knowledge matters.