What about this?
This means that two objects will reach the ground at the same time if they are dropped simultaneously from the same height. … When air resistance plays a role, the shape of the object becomes important. In air, a feather and a ball do not fall at the same rate.
Course with my uncertainty., principle factored in , I may be seen pernicious, or ok I may be wrong.
So, will is someones valuing. The total of their valuing structure.
So if you want to know someones will, the best thing to do is to map their values.
To Meno,
Yup
To Jakob,
Yup
Conscious valuing/values i’d say. This is where semantics gets tricky as well, one can have values but the values not being aligned with them deep down, for example. A child being brought up a certain way to have certain values, if they don’t align with that individual, which a lot of times they don’t, then those values become an entrapment of their identity. We call that byproduct of indoctrination through environment… which we all have to get out of to understand ourselves as individuals, the disassociation of what is not necessary to the identity one wishes to portray themself as.
So it is very important to be fully conscious of oneself and ones values and attribution.
Matter without will is still alive, only in primitive form of instinctive behavior that may interact with other matter and overlaps to become complex, which manifested will and life. It’s just a different aspect to consciousness, one we came through and of and now we may manipulate/transmute it as well
Where Will is defined as a value system this system will not be absolutely set in stone
There are two variables here : the system itself and the psychology of the individual
There are basically three variations :
A weak value system with a weak individual
A strong value system with a weak individual
A strong value system with a strong individual
There are also more subtle variations as well :
The strength or weakness of an individual changes over time although they may predominantly be only one of these
The value system may have some principles added or removed or modified or it could even be discarded for another one
All of these variables are what we have to deal with in order to become the best version of ourselves we can possibly be
They are our eternal attempt to understand the nature of existence in the here and now as it applies to us both collectively and individually
To understand the human condition which guarantees that there will be suffering and then how to rationalise and contain it as a consequence
So one’s freewill is relative to the kind of value, the quality of value, the number of values, or all/some of the above?
So then does the freewill decrease for bob when joe says of bob’s values: ‘no, you have bad values and/or not enough values’?
Who is the arbiter and judge of the degree of freewill, here?
These are well placed rhetorical questions, but I think we can now say that values have nothing to do with freewill.
I think the single most dominant factor here is psychology
A strong individual will have greater control over their options - this is not the same as saying they have more options
A weak individual will have lesser control over their options - but it also depends on what their particular choices are
A strong individual is more likely to think rationally and a weak one is more likely to think irrationally - but not always
And none of this is set in stone - multiple of all the possible outcomes for all free will choices by the total number of people making those
choices and you are none the wiser and this is why psychology is regarded as a soft science - too many variables and not enough constants
Artimas - the difference between natural and unnatural values is as between life and death.
What value-prisoners need is to rebirth their will into their own natures proper values. This is a cathartic and long lasting process, probably related to what the yogis call the kundalini, the fiery snake which, if awakened at the bottom of the spine, begins to burn through all the falsehoods on a slow and painful but more than that liberating process of rebirth through consecutively more exalted value systems, from root to crown.
I think my realization that valuing is the core of things would have been an Anahata type insight. It felt like it. Nearly died before I could jump to the conclusion. Anyway, all or nothing values, this is what triggers us the most, if a value is so hot that we would die in our approach - get rich or die trying is expression of this in a primitive sense, sacrificing oneself in the saviour of ones nation is a higher sort - but this is how we see that will is superior to mere desire or want or need: we relate most to seeing others overcoming their needs and desires and wants in service of something that truly matters - the valuing of which is ones very soul.
Selling ones soul, selling ones will - letting go of the highest values for “realistic” ones.
A funny metaphor occurs to me;
a car and a ravine, and a ramp, and two sets of fuel.
Fuel 1 is ones natural valuing, which might or might not be strong enough to drive the car up the ramp and across the ravine.
Fuel 2 is ones conditioned valuing, which is sure to be weak enough for the car to never even reach the ravine.
Most people run on 2. Its only natural. But Fuel 1 is what drove human accomplishment, and evolution itself.
Universal truth, ignorance and intent is what plays a role in those values in being more or less free. Not the values alone. Conscious values, not just values.
Nature, is the judge by trial and error. Psyche as well.
Agree, that’s what I called a sacrifice of the present for the future, in my thread “Impossibility of a possibility, why?” Thread. It’s all value attribution and most are not conscious of it, which is the main issue. For if one or most were conscious of it, most would see how little or meaningless(self destructive) such is and how much time they have wasted for the present alone instead of for the future or something greater than oneself
To promethean,
Yup
Freedom is relative to an individual. For a devoted and loyal soldier, deserting is not a choice. And for a supermodel watching her weight at a restaurant, desserting is not a choice.
Lol
I have to disagree twice, then. Not only do values have nothing to do with freewill, but value statements are non-cognitive and incapable of expressing truths. Attitudes, preferences, tastes, opinions, yes, … but these are what non-cognitivists call ‘non-declarative speech acts’. Such statements are equivalent to and amount to something like exclamations. A couple examples:
‘Killing is wrong’ = ‘boo you suck, you murderer!’
'Loving your neighbor is good = ‘hurray you are so awesome!’
(See the ‘hurray/boo theory’ or what’s formally called ‘emotivism’)
It’s the availability, intent, universal truths and ignorance.
Yes. Thankfully when one awakens, the reality is so overwhelmingly beautiful that one tends to forgive oneself for not seeing it before. The magnificence of truth cleans the soul.
sure they’re choices. are you saying it’s logically impossible for a soldier to decide that deserting his post is what he should do, or a supermodel to decide she wants to eat a big 'ol slice of blueberry cheesecake?
but again, ‘choices’ are acts of freewill. instead, the same forces that influence the commission of an act also influence the formation of the intentional structures that correspond to the act. the soldier might suddenly begin thinking that the war is wrong, and bail. the supermodel might suddenly begin thinking that being a fatty is not so bad, and order that cheesecake. and notice that neither of them ever begin or initiate their changing of mind. the ‘thought’ comes when it wants… not when they want it. one does not decide to change their mind. or rather, one does not think ‘okay now i am going to begin reconsidering my decision’. a freewill act of changing one’s mind would involve an infinite regress; in order to prevent my decision from being formally determined (caused) by something other than my own agency, i’d have to choose to choose to choose to choose to choose, etc.
The “Original Cause” of any choice is never fully known by anybody, therefore not a matter of infinite-regress, and so it is also never fully known whether a choice is freely-willed or fully-determined.
Again, this is the Epistemological argument/fallacy of Determinism. If you don’t know, then the choice is, at least, a matter of belief. The soldier believes it is a choice, or it is not a choice. The supermodel believes it is a choice, or is not a choice. So then, logically, what are the bases for these beliefs? What (Causes) “lead” one to believe in free-will or determinism. And furthermore, what is the difference between a “freely-made” choice versus a “determined-choice”?
For the examples I gave, answers can be given. The soldier, by definition of “Being a soldier” or moreover “Being a GOOD soldier”, does not have a choice to desert. Just like “Being a GOOD supermodel”, does not have a choice to dessert.
By definition of the label, the identity, you MUST do certain things. And this would be the basis of your “Determinism”.
alright man. i see a rock rolling down a hill, or a branch blowing in the wind, or a grasshopper jump off a flower. i see things moving in space. then i see my hand raise up. i see something else moving in space. now what is it about my hand such that what makes it move is something different than what makes the other three things move? let’s say the movement of the hand comes after mental event ‘choice to move hand’.
what is that mental event like, and what comes before it? is it like one of the fundamental forces that governs the movement of the other three things… or is it a special force? and is there some other event that comes before it that is not mental event ‘choice to choose’? or, if there is an event like this that causes the choice, who or what is making that choice?
you have to either assert that everything in the universe ‘chooses’ to move (which makes you something like a panpsychist), or, things that ‘choose’ are not the essential causes of the actions and movements that follow a choice. if you don’t assert this, your only other option is some variety of cartesian dualism.
you know a neurologist can hook you up to a machine and with the push of a button, not only make you laugh, but make you think you chose to laugh. well i don’t know about that second part but the first part is real shit. there’s an old black and white video of the experiment. chick just starts laughing as soon as he throws the switch. and there is a natural switch (cause) for every event that happens in your brain… even the event that consists of you thinking you’re choosing to do something.
i’m almost beginning to share biggy’s concern that maybe a lot of this is just an exercise in irony? shirley you can’t still believe there is freewill. or maybe you’re still confusing freedom, free speech, free sample packs, right of the free press, free estimates, freeways, and buy one get one free, with freewill, i dunno.