Freewill exists

Every possibility is pre-determined, our freedom of will lies in the choosing of which pre-determined reality consciously, that we wish to live in, of and for, (which the possibilities are endless) one path of a continuity of predicting the effects of cause and caution/responsibility from a continually achieved understanding(s) or the second of which is a confinement to a moment of ego or being absorbed into identity/persona, which is the conscious state of being that appears as an illusion, the confinement of the ego in the present moment.

To deny that there is a self is to deny there is a subconscious which is to deny determinism because determinism (is) the subconscious/unconscious, visible in nature that determined consciousness, which now we may see the system due to that evolution, so what, do you think we are going to just cease to evolve more? You’re in for a ride my friend, strap in.

I am saying the opposite, I am saying there is a free will and “absolute” free will is the loop one decides to tread down, the pursuit of understanding and we are embedded with millions of millions of years of change instinctively reacting to understand. The only reason it is absolute is because I personally do not think that knowledge or understanding will ever cease unless one chooses for it to end by the pursuit of staying ignorant. It came out of determinism, it’s a use of determinism. The fact we can use determinism and understand it should clearly show you that we may exploit such, which we do… all the time… determinism is not an end to learning. It isn’t as simple as mere cause and effect, that’s why consciousness evolved because there is no end to change. Humanity on a collective level is the best bet for an attainable “absolute” free will. Due to diversity in understanding but it is also the very thing that drives it being absolute, by evolution and understanding that evolution.

It’s not describing everyone’s life, it’s describing their choices, completely different… I could tell you you’re an ugly pos, but think differently, is that still a description of my life? Because my will is mine to control, at least value. How do you describe what one is thinking if they don’t make a choice? What if their life is their thoughts? Can you still describe their life externally? a quarter-half of ones life is unconscious or subconscious experiencing, is this just bs then? To call such is to call determinism bs, because that’s what comes from the subconscious/unconscious aspect of the world.

If I never speak and lived with you for 5 years, I guarantee you would be uncomfortable with it, know why? Because silence is unpredictable, you can’t predict my life because you do not know my thoughts. Because I have placed -value- on not sharing them with you.

Or the opposite, of how I am actually sharing my thoughts with you right now, because I do value you and am trying to show you the endless spiral that has not closed and probably won’t ever.

silhouette wrote:

Yes I remember the perceptual acuity argument that I thoroughly debunked.

Ecmandu is replying:

You didn’t debunk shit! This is the reason I called you an ass. My argument was simple: the electron from a tree (if it’s not just empty space, but you actually find something), is not different than an electron from a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Then you talked about muons and bosons and prions and gluons and quarks and shit, and I said, a single instance of these elementary particles will not allow you to discern one object from the other, when compared with another particle of it’s kind from a different object. THATS why I called you an ass! You knew what I was saying, and decided to ignore it. You’re still using your ignoring as a “proof”, which means that you’re still being an ass about this. My argument is the correct one.

Silhouette wrote:

I absolutely act as though identity exists - it’s how you operate socially at this particular point in history/geography, a simplistic convenience… and it’s a lie. I accept it in good faith because of its utility, but use does not mean truth. Judge me all you like, but I would rather be aware of the truth and not blinded by utility. My actions betray nothing.

Ecmandu responds:

People who care about non contradiction, don’t ACT!!! Their behavior is consistent with their logic!!

Silhouette wrote:

I’m not telling you to believe in Determinism “because I say so”, I’m saying Determinism is how things work whether I say so or not, and whether we each like it or not. I will still posit “I”, “you” and “tree” because that’s how humans currently socially derive meaning from the world. The word “tree” isn’t the tree itself, the gesture towards the tree to learn what a tree is isn’t the tree itself, the learning to follow the finger towards the tree to know what’s being referred to isn’t the tree. It’s all a means of to get to the truth, without being truth itself. Meaning and utility are essentially useful meaningful lies. The truth is that the “head” has no distinct gap to separate it from the “neck” - it’s all a continuous experience that we lie to each other is divided distinctly and discretely. This is why it’s been so problematic to get AI to learn how to identify objects in a photo. You have to learn to misunderstand the continuity and lack of discrete identity in order to see the discrete and identify specific things. The meaning of language is all a lie, meaning is a means. Truth is the ends. Utility is not truth, its quite the opposite.

Ecmandu responds:

If utility isn’t truth, then why do you use it every second? What did I say, all silhouette is: “do what I say, not what I do”

Silhouette wrote:

In a sense this may be hard to accept, but in a sense it’s the easiest thing ever to accept. Think of listening to a foreign language that you don’t understand. It’s an indistinct stream of sounds, which you have to learn to parse into discrete words in order to understand it. This is no different than how it would have been as a baby to see the continuous experience of reality, and learn to parse it into distinct objects. What do kids constantly say? “What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?” “Why?” “Why?” "Why? They want to learn the set of discrete events that follow along to establish what determines what. Determinism is what they learn to link the lies back together in order to get back to the continuous truth. It’s the only way to derive meaning aka “knowledge” from the world, or “being”, in order to get to the ends of “truth”.

ecmandu replies:

All I see here, is trying to get people to stop believing in a self, so that you WHO DEFINITELY BELIEVES IN A SELF!!! can do whatever they want without consequence!! Because you brainwashed everyone else!! It’s a form of dominance, not truth for truths sake. Im actually starting to dislike you now. I have your number now.

“What do kids constantly say? “What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?” “Why?” “Why?” "Why?” They want to learn the set of discrete events that follow along to establish what determines what. Determinism is what they learn to link the lies back together in order to get back to the continuous truth. It’s the only way to derive meaning aka “knowledge” from the world, or “being”, in order to get to the ends of “truth”.”

So you admit there is a continuous truth, your error is in believing truth ends. If truth ends evolution couldn’t be, end of story. Which a pursuit of this never ending truth is the free will of which is “absolute”, attainable by an individual, is a different question and theory. But the fact that I understand that change/evolution and my valuing is at an infinity, I can deduce and understand that there is in totality of all time/change, an absolute free will(pursuit of understanding) of which a single individuals will may become more free than the last(ignorance) by finding meaning(value) in the correct or right things.

If ones meaning is the pursuit of truth then they only become more free with the continuity of that of which is an understanding, which is the point I have made. Contrasts of ignorance to understanding in individuals is easily observable in society and existing.

Also it’s about deriving an understanding of and from knowledge, of which knowledge is derived from meaning(attributed value)

Knowledge of which one does not have an understanding of or if a point that is unknown exists regarding what one may think they know, is the ‘cold’ or bitter attribution to reason instead of responsibility, due to responsibility only coming from an understanding.

the past only /determines/ so much as one /values/ it. That /is/ a free will. If someone hits me in the past, I do not have to let this have value over me in the later present moment of which changes… that is what determinism suggests.

“Take what is useful, discard what is not.”

Depends on how you define ‘living’ everything is in a state of vibration, aka alive… just different levels of consciousness… unconscious > subconscious > consciousness, each level represents a set of instinctive behavior, the gaps represent the leaps in complexity of instinctual behavior and consciousness which is the inverting of instinct, observable instinct by timeless awareness.

Note your claim of absolute free will [as with Schopenhauer’] is equivalent to claiming a square-circle exists and it will be proven to exists some day.

It is impossible for a square-circle to exists just like absolute free will.
Absolute free will is an impossibility to be real and will never be possible at all.

No one said anything about a square circle, both exist independent of each other and you could certainly layer them over each other if you wanted. It is not impossible to understand the future effects of a cause and to understand further ahead of that which is presently possible by a logical/reasonable deduction of what may be possible within the confines of universal law. The possibilities are endless, regardless of your square circle analogy. Especially with biology, technology, chemistry, to deny an absolute free will is to deny evolution, change… and the pursuit of understanding it.

It is like optical illusions but not exactly.

There are three main types of illusions, i.e.

  1. Optical illusions are empirical illusions.

  2. The other are logical illusions, i.e. based on fallacies.

  3. The illusion of Free Will is a transcendental illusion which not easy to decipher and explain.

These illusions emerged out of the human conditions, thus has their pros and cons.
What is critical is for us to recognize them for what they are, i.e. as illusions and not take them as something real.
What pros that these illusions can bring or cons they invoked we have to deal with them in their respective contexts respectively.

If free will is an illusion prismatic then so is consciousness, because that is what is the free will, we have control over what we can/may or cannot/may not value in every present moment. I understand that any direction in which we move is a cause and the effect to come after is predetermined, but I get to value and choose which direction I move or which cause I pick while already understanding the effects.

So when you make a choice do you not root out the effects of what the possible cause may be? If you do this then it is no longer an act of predetermination because you /know/ and /understand/ what the effects are, you are aware of such. If something happens that you did not expect? That’s what /ignorance/ is and you can see it everywhere. You can see how some people have higher consciousness than others, better awareness.

Free will is a staircase but it isn’t illusion because you actually do climb and understand more. What’s wisdom and power from knowledge if it’s an illusion? The responsibility comes from the fact that we may value freely and we consciously dissect cause and effect in the moment of our choices. Dreams, intuition, etc, what are these phenomena if not transcendental effects of ones will? It’s the subconscious mind active while asleep or the dissection of a predetermination/effect. So how if we are not timeless awareness, can we tell the future by exploiting cause and effect? We may look in the past and the future as well as the present, seems pretty transcendental to me, so does a priori.

It has been argued that there is no self when there is and it is the literal reason we are all different in our perception. That’s what self is, the differentiation and unique aspect of an individual, which comes from environment and if an individual delves deep enough in his past to understand any issues if any one can discard or keep what is useful from pain or past and discard the rest of it, a detachment which is quite liberating and then one may focus on building themself, one can even change their name. No one has to live as a byproduct of being shaped by others or environment fully when one can change environment by value attribution.

Speaking for the epiphenomenalists, what they mean is that the ‘self’, by which you mean ‘consciousness’, is an emergent property of the neural net and has no causal efficacy. It is therefore literally unable to cause a ‘choice’, and therefore there is no agent causation… no freewill.

One could further argue that there is no discrete ‘self’ anyway which can be described as anything more than a set of sensations, dispositions and behaviors. Did you watch the beetle in the box video I posted yesterday?

The self isn’t the consciousness… it’s the subconscious and the effects of environment upon the conscious/subconscious of which one is born into, it is the diversity and uniqueness of ones genetic makeup and environment that creates an individual that is different from all others, genetics of course playing a role as well, the cause and effects of ones past(environment) of which may be looked back upon, reflected on to understand cause and effect, which is the creation of self… again, use what is useful of past, discard what is not. You can exploit determinism and if you can exploit determinism to create the person you /want/ or feel one should be, then that itself is an act of some form of freedom.

It isn’t about the self making a choice itself… it’s about dissecting self and the subconscious mind to understand it and find who you truly are and what you can be. It’s about being the self, consciously.
It doesn’t have to choose because an individual who understands self, consciously chooses for self.

Are you denying that people bury traumas and information from ones present environment that they are not fully conscious or understanding of due to their lack of capability in that present moment of their not being fully aware or ‘’matured’? (Usually children) of which this trauma or buried information can be examined and dissected at a different or later time than when it occurred? It can also be ignored, is that not a choice free to an individual?

So where does the information get buried or stored? If no separation of conscious state, subconscious(self) and the unconscious state of the mind? Which I have described are levels or layers that play into the next, consciousness being the awareness of the subconscious/unconscious aspects of the world.

I have not watched the video with the beetle yet, I will to see what you’re talking about though when I have some time on lunch. I will however state that a beetle is in the state of being subconscious, instinctual but not understanding fully of itself and environment, which is the differentiation between conscious and subconscious/unconscious, which our psyche is embedded with both, since it is connected to a string of an ever changing infinity of matter/energy and reactions, that we were not conscious of but came from.

I absolutely agree.

Prism you are a breath of fresh air.

I was under the impression that Epiphenomenalism was a kind of Dualism, where mind is a separate substance from body, and whilst the body has causal influence over the mind, which serves as a representation of physical conditions, the mind has no causal influence in the other direction, back over the body.

The way you speak of it makes it sound like a kind of Monism, with the same one-way causation. Perhaps it’s both/can be both, I wonder if you know more about it than I do.

I was actually considering mentioning the square circle analogy to you as well. Are possibilities endless even as far as squaring the circle? - is even that potentially possible? Is nothing whatsoever certain? If so, how can you be certain of that?

That’s just will. Freedom to attribute value or otherwise isn’t up to you, even though it completely feels like it is. Determinism isn’t a restriction to only one type of choice e.g. only holding onto a grudge against someone who hit you, because you might be determined to let it go. Subvert instinct and act on your consciousness as much as you like, it’s Determinism that results in that happening, and it’s Determinism that presents you with the kinds of conscious choices you might want to choose, and it’s Determinism that makes one seem more appealing whether emotionally or rationally, and “you” just so happen to pick that one which was Determined to be preferable to you. Instinct is different from conscious rationality, of course, but it is in the way I just described that they have common ground - both are subject to Determinism. Do you understand what I’m saying, even if you don’t agree with it?

Truth is a tautology: “Existence”. Even breaking it down to “there’s something going on” compromises the perfection in truth that is “what is being referred to” when one says there’s something going on. That existence that’s being referred to is continuous and its “having no end” is a null statement because it doesn’t have anything, it doesn’t even have “having”. It’s everything and nothing like the most extreme yin yang possible. The only way we can get meaning from it, and say things like “having” and “no end” is by breaking it down into discrete identities that don’t really exist, but it’s useful if you imagine they do. When you do this, discrete experience can have an end, and evolution can get you from a beginning to that end no problem. Free Will doesn’t apply to what nothing applies to (continuous experience), and when when you deterministically break it down (discrete experience) it doesn’t apply validly.

You break down the “absolute”, and then get back to it as closely as you can with the “relative” through Determinism i.e. causation linking the discrete parts back up with each other relatively. This process is creating useful meaning from truth, and the useful truth is as “true to” truth as you can get it, though forever imperfectly so. This leaves open plenty of ways to break truth down and apply Determinism to it, but breaking it down and applying “Free Will” to it is just a less effective way of getting back to truth - an incomplete one, with internal contradictions. Determinism fills its gaps and gets you closer back to the truth. In this sense, of utility, Determinism is merely far superior to Free Will, but in the sense of existence, something can only exist if it doesn’t have internal contradictions. Free Will has internal contradictions, so it doesn’t exist. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible to keep an open mind, an open mind is perfectly compatible with Determinism, one can even be determined to keep an open mind with regards to Determinism itself. But even if something better than Determinism comes along, it won’t get Free will back off the hook - that will remain in the past with other outdated ideas that we’ve evolved beyond.

I think your ultimate issue is that you see Determinism as a restriction. It’s not a restriction in the way you’re taking restriction to be, which is what I’m trying to explain.

There are things that you are saying that make me think you misunderstand Determinism. Determinism is the unconscious? No it isn’t… Determinism is a description with explanation, it’s not a command or a restriction, it’s just “what happens” and “how/why”. Be as free as you like and evolve as much as you like and it will still explain you better than anything currently out there. It is as simple as cause and effect… I mean, if you think one thing and say another, something is determining you to say what you don’t think. It’s that simple. I keep hearing “but something better than Determinism might come along”, but this does nothing to elevate Free Will back on top of it. It’s not a binary choice, like a see-saw - that logic is just “God of the gaps”. “If a non-zero possibility that antithesis is flawed, then thesis prevails” - no, that’s not how it works. Free Will was a biblical understanding, things moved on and Determinism filled in the gaps. The spectre holds emotional appeal and perceived societal advantage, but none of this is actually true. It would be a shame if you’re simply not understanding what Determinism is, like some of what you say indicates.

Last and least:

You tried to equate clearly definable entities like trees cars and humans with something you can hardly define at all with any precision: identity.
You did this by saying at the extremes of perception everything looks the same, ignoring all the space in between where there is a huge difference. This is the fallacy of composition leading you to make the fallacy of false equivalence.
Debunked.

Tu quoque fallacy: "an argument is wrong because the proponent doesn’t act in accordance with their argument.

“Argumentum ad hominem” (specifically “Tone Policing”) - the fallacy of drawing attention to and criticising traits of the proponent, instead of the argument itself.
“Appeal to emotion” - an emotional reaction instead of a rational one is a logical fallacy.

Essentially a worthless post of yours there, full of fallacies. I’ve never liked you, you’re hysterical and an extraordinarily messy thinker and communicator, but that’s not stopped me from concentrating on the content of your arguments. Why does it stop you? The only reason I’ve ever engaged with you is because you make all these claims of genius, high IQ and proofs.
I’m constantly disappointed, but I’m always on the look out for the slightest hint that there could be something out there I’ve not thought of before. In spite of all your narcissistic claims, you continue to have less than nothing. The only good thing I can think to praise you with is your attempt to formulate logical proofs, even if you fail spectacularly - and I try to see the best in everybody! But I have no desire to put up with incompetence.

The worst part is that you’ll now try and put all this criticism back on me despite it clearly being baseless, so go ahead - and you can pretend it was your idea to cease this un-discussion.

Silhouette,

I’m going to put this to you very bluntly. You’re not as smart as you think you are. Every logical fallacy I’ve ever encountered has many exceptions.

I read you a long time ago. You argue for the sake of arguing but not to get at truth.

This actually pleases me, I don’t hate that, it creates more selective pressure to adapt language and logic.

I assigned the same motive to you that I assign to everyone who argues against identity to this regard … all of you want no accountability, you are not special to this regard.

When you start preaching that non identity is the BETTER perspective than identity, rather than a different tool we have at our disposal, I will lay into you, because, I understand it’s not only incorrect, but the personality structure of going in this direction is about absolving accountability.

This thread is a good approach to the solution, but not enough in my opinion.

OP uses the Law of Excluded Middle to pinpoint ‘where’ exactly free will must reside, if it exists, which is an (undetermined) “internal force”. From my perspective, determinism is epistemological. So the aspects of ‘Self’ or even nature, which are unknown, is where free will must reside. However, Ecmandu correctly argues that free will cannot be ‘external’. And on that point, I agree with the OP.

To further the proposition then, I would ask, what are the “undetermined forces of life within biology that cannot be predicted?”

I would go in the other direction, more pantheistic. Don’t grant any lack of free will anywhere. They lied to us about matter, it being hard and fixed. At the very least is all a consciousness-movable shifting fields of potentials in quantum foam. If one makes freedom the exception rather than the rule, you have given up half the battlefield. Let them point at something without consciousness, so far fully hardened into one option. They can’t.

Pretty much

Consciousness isn’t external, it only seems as if it is due to determinism inverting, which the inverted aspect is our ability to be aware of the ‘unknown’ by choice of value. The subconscious isn’t separate from consciousness, it’s merely a filter and storage of what one may not yet of capable in understanding due to a lack to a lack of direct conscious experience or of how to diagnose that experience.

Yes yes, if you logically argue something to be true whether anyone likes it or not, you’re arguing it because emotionally you want it to be true… - fallacy name: “Appeal to motive”. I’ve heard that before from a different poor thinker, despite the fact that I intentionally live my life exactly in line with how a “responsible” person would. Perhaps it is a pattern amongst Free Will advocates - to swipe back ad hominem out of petty vengeance when reason yet again fails them? More research is needed.

Look, you can hand-wave at the possibility that my expert identification of logical fallacies could one day fail, but until someone legitimately proves me to not be as smart as I know I am, I’ll chalk up that argument under “empty” alongside the others.
It may shock you to know that I fully accept my lack of mastery in some fields, and I prefer to take a backseat when someone shows superior knowledge on a topic out of a desire to learn. I actually want to be legitimately proven wrong by something I’ve not thought of before - THIS is why I argue. I want to advance my understanding of truth, and only argue more if I see even a shred of potential to better myself (or others) in this regard. So when I want out due to frustration, you can be sure that I’ve realised I’m not going to get anything from further discussion. You will notice by the different tone I am offering others when I am not yet absolutely sure if I am right - there is a reason you received that tone to begin with but no longer do. Believe it or not, I do actually prefer to be patient.

To clarify the first half of your closing sentence (the second half is more fallacious appealing to motive), self-identity is not better in terms of truth, but seems to have at least some value in terms of utility. In my stated interests of truth, this alone is why I argue against it. Even if we were arguing utility, self-identity would not be a clear winner if it was accepted that a discussion could be conducted without the layman use of subjects, grammatically. But I don’t know anyone philosophically advanced enough to try this with.

One thing people at least appear to often forget is that experience takes place, using the terms of Materialism, in the brain. The input that gets translated into experience (even experience of the “external”) is supposed to be “from/because” of some noumenal reality that is supposed to exist independently of subjective perception, despite being 100% directly inaccessible. The only conception you have of the “external” to “your identity”, or even “the nounmenal”, is all 100% taking place within your consciousness. This is what I’m assuming people are meaning when they speak of the “internal”… And this puts the argument squarely in favour of “100% internal” empirically speaking. However, as you can tell by the inverted commas, I am not accepting any of this language. My main reason is that 100% internal (or even 100% external for that matter) means there is no opposite against which to define “internal” (or “external”), invalidating the terms when they are 100%.

What happened to the blackboxing, Karpel? :icon-wink:

Are you saying hard determinism is invalidated by consciousness? If you are, I would have to disagree. First of all, are you assuming a Dualist stance? If so, what is your solution to the mind-body problem to legitimise said Dualism? I am not sure the argument would work under Monism. Since you “don’t grant any lack of Free Will anywhere”, I don’t see how Free Will is possible without Dualism. It requires a mind separate from matter such that it is simultaneously immune from being determined by matter, yet can still be influenced by the causation of matter in order to inform decisions, and yet still able to interact with matter once a decision is made and realised. There is so much contradiction in such a claim even if you could satisfactorily solve the mind-body problem. And this is on top of the exhaustive syllogism that either one decides for a reason, which is will but not free from such a reason, or one decides for no reason, which is free from reason but no longer “will”. Therefore you can either have free, or will, but not both.

You need to get past all three of these barriers in order to even think about “Free Will” anywhere.

I think I can only answer this mystery in this way:

Freewill doesn’t want to know everything that happens before it happens, even though it could, as freewill cannot tolerate infinite boredom.

To the extent that it’s executive, it will find a way to construct (ultimately) a ride which doesn’t violate its consent. That involves indeterminacy in the context of meta control.

Additionally, the mind is under pressure not to accept so much indeterminacy that they can’t tell the difference between their indeterminacy and another beings determinant of them, so that, again, their consent is not violated.

I hope that made sense.

Silhouette wrote:

Tu quoque fallacy: “an argument is wrong because the proponent doesn’t act in accordance with their argument”

Just to give a very basic counter example to a so called logical fallacy:

Someone says they don’t exist: they are behaving the exact opposite of their words.

Instinct(basic consciousness) which is our unconscious mind due to not having a developed awareness.

The unconscious aspect to reality or the universe goes back as long or longer than what humanity can trace perhaps. A lot of years went into bringing our dna about, I am not sure the hard deterministic promoters understand that, when matter formed and began reacting with other matter to bring about complexity we were unconscious of such but we are still embedded with the experience, this proves how and why we have separate spaces/levels of mind or consciousness, due to when we were developing, having different levels or states of consciousness.

The mind developed from and matches reality, consciousness is the step we have the advantage on currently. Compared to animals, plants and elements.

There is a higher and lower, it doesn’t matter if one admits it or not, they know it’s true. A higher will/consciousness and a lower consciousness you can point at reality and see such. Determinism itself determined free will, by causing wisdom or the ability to understand.

I understand cause and effect at the very simplistic of levels, the state of elements and the unconscious aspect, complexity formed and brought a subconscious aspect, which is life, which grew even more complex.

Determinism freed itself by creating an infinity of possibilities always ongoing that we may understand and give value within its confines. So I don’t understand how one doesn’t see that they are free within determinism itself. How else would there be different fields of science and exploration?