Choice vs. Determinism

How do peopl on the choise sice of the argument even justif ytheir view? I just can't ssee how you can believe in chiose. Noboydy ever chose to exist here, they are just placed here out or randomness or causlity. Causality is the only way to explain existence. Even if god does exist, causality could be the only explanation for his existence. What's to say that the devil didn't create god, then give hi mthe illusion that he is god and the devil made god believe that he could rule over the people, but in the end, perhaps the devil is the won controlling god. Can anyone prove this isn't true> I don't think youc an.

Na, it's just cause and effect, and a ton of divverent variable in bwetween.

u r full of sh1t. i hate posts like this where the poster is trying to be a clever b@st@rd with a stupid theory that has no meaning..

go and think up something else...like you want to bone your mother and sister is it normal...blah blah blah..

my cock hurts

This is a stupid topic because no one on here has the advanced knowledge required to know the answer which lies within extremely complex Physics and is not even definite tehre. I just felt compelled to say to Stargirl that you're a complete idiot for being so literal about this, free will aint about people holding guns to your head you fucking moron.

The brain casts the illusion of free will, due to self-consciousness, but in reality, our actions are simply a by-product of our own neural activity which causes us to react in an appropriate fashion, based on the pre-programming of our genetics, and anything we may have learned along the way. Sorry for my horrific spelling and grammar in the initial post and reply. I wasn't myself last night.

What were you on?

There may not be any arguments for free will.
But then again, there ain't many arguments for the existence of the soul either.

If there aren't any arguments, then why do so many people assume it's real? Even if there is a soul, what's to say the soul isn't a by-product of causality as well? I realize that we don't know enough about the way the universe works to come to a definite conclusion, but don't we know enough to assume that everything is in a fixed or semi(mostly)-fixed state? Even random number generators follow a specific pattern, eventually.

Do you know the arguments?
I don't.
But I'm pretty sure i exist nonetheless.
Its very natural for a conscious entity to assume it's own existence.
But it would be impossible to prove to others.

Randomness is what comes from the places where we don't know what's going on in.
So a system we know completely can never be used to make anything random.
Doing so would be a paradox. So yes, the more we know the less random things become.

But when we go down to the ultra small and the ultra big, things stop making sense.
(e.g quantum physics and limits of the universe)

And our conscious entity is built up from the very small, which we don't understand by a long shot. Why consciousness arises when electrons flow through the brain.. nobody knows.

According to science, i don't see how the consciousness(I) should even exist at all.
I should just be a bot, a computing bot.

But I'm very convinced I'm here.

Leaving me in a world where I'm talking to someone with no arguments for my souls existence but still an utter conviction.

And the free will is supposively a byproduct of the soul's existence.

Shit stargirl i forgot that dictionary quotes won arguments

and im really sorry for saying your not allowed to be literal, but i didn't have any choice about it.

Mimir2 is was just wondering if you sutdied physics or read up about it cus i noticed you mentioned it in your last comment.

I'm a doctor

ChrisUFC wants to form an unlimited chain of gay sex

I've studied some.

cool, don't worry that wasn't meant as a snide remark or anything. Just wondering what your take is on how Quantum mechanics and Relativity effect free will.

dont be letting horses w@nk you off then..lets kill normal_guy or is it girl..

seriously..i think that we had predestined lives...although with predestination you also have the choice to do good things ..or fuck up ( forks in the road..you can choose) choose what you wanna be in life, choose who your family is, when you die..things like that..but it can change if you choose the wrong roads..such as the friends you hang out with, or if you decide you want to do drugs, or drink excessively or quit school...things like that.

you have a choice to do bad or good, dont say its no fucking choice coz then u just a fucking moron seriously just coz u cant handle taking responsability for your own actions u dont have to make a fucking post about not having choices thats just a fucking excuse for being a fuck up! or doing shit thats fucked up!

Okay, let me see if I can simplify this a little. Imagine a pool table with x number of balls on it. I strike ball 1 that then ball 1 in turn strikes ball 2. Ball 2 strikes balls 3 and 4 at the same time. Ball 3 continues on to strike ball 7 while ball 4 strikes 8. Then bouncing off ball 8, ball 4 also strikes ball 9. This process continues until the balls come to rest. With enough movement on the board you might think that it is impossible to predict the final resting place of all the balls almost as if it is random. But the final resting places are not random. If I strike the same ball the same manner with all things being equal, then the result will always be the same. The universe works very much like this but instead of cause and effect of balls, we are dealing with the cause and effect of atoms. What it boils down to is this: there are no random, spontaneous, or miraculous actions in nature. All actions are predetermined before they happen. Since we are made up of atoms we are no exception to the rule. Our actions are also predetermined. If one had absolute knowledge about the universe, the future would be perfectly predictable.

The problem of cause and effect at smaller levels are that it is easier to get errors from imprecise measurements and unknown hidden variables. When I say unknown variables I mean deep levels of causality. On smaller levels, things are more chaotic. Like in my pool example: if you have enough chaos, then there is an appearance of randomness. Probabilities are used in math because of unknown variables. For example, when a coin is tossed a random variable is defined and it is assumed that heads and tails have an equal chance of coming up. But, even though the variable is defined as random, it does not mean that it actually is random. If for example, the rate of rotation of the coin in the air, how much force the coin is thrown upward, wind resistance, force of gravity, balance of the coin, and smoothness of the surface it lands on to name a few variables were known it might be easier to predict which side is more likely to land on. If all variables were known then there would be no doubt which side the coin would land. Whether there are no apparent variables exists does not mean they are not there. For all we know the complete causes of the effect continue into measurements that are infinitesimal and we do not exactly have an infinitely powerful microscope to prove that.

Now on to the subject of freewill. Perhaps you have two options: A and B. If you are more inclined to pick option A, then determinism would say that those forces have driven you to pick A. But if you picked option B anyway, to prove your freewill even though you were not inclined to pick option B, that might make one think that this is freewill at work and not determinism. But by choosing option B anyway, you would probably just be choosing it because of your desire to prove your own freewill. This reason has a force stronger than the one that inclines you to pick option A in your mind and therefore drives you to pick option B. If you were not trying to prove your freewill and picked option B for what seemed to be no reason, then I would default to the most basic explanation: matter is matter whether it is living or non-living. The brain is a very complex machine made of, not mechanical parts, but organic parts, but still it is just a machine. For example, I do not know how a car or computer works precisely but there are cause and effect relationships in the machinery that allow the machine to work when the key is turned or the power is turned on. When a machine does not do what is expected, it is usually because of a malfunction of some kind and the problem can be tracked down. The human brain is the most complex machine known in the universe. But if its functions were known, our actions would be perfectly predictable. At the most basic levels, it is just chemical and electrical communication across neurons, nothing more.

We cannot assume that since we can predict the motion of pool balls or coins that we can predict the motion of individual atoms.
Those two behave very differently.

And there has been an experiment that shows beyond any reasonable doubt that we really don't understand the slightest fuck what's going on at the very very small level.
Nobody has ever been able to make any sense of the result.
If you can, you will get the Nobel prize.

It's called the double slit experiment.
Its results are that photons and electrons behave both as particles and waves at the same time and that their behavior changes depending on weather we check on them some time later. But us checking some time later shouldn't affect what's going on earlier.
The outcome is that it does nevertheless, the universe can change backwards depending on what we are finding out.
It basically proves that what's going on is a complete mystery and we don't understand it at all.

And thats our electrons, our electrons flowing through our brain which probably have a lot to do with the existence of our soul.

There is more, the planks constant which states that perfect knowledge of any system is theoretically impossible to achieve, not due to difficulty in measuring systems but because its a law of the universe that says we may never know too much. Whenever we know more about a system in one way we loose information about it in another and vice versa.
Like nature has decided that we are not allowed to know more than so and so.



How can you say that your brain is nothing more than a flow of electrons through logical channels when you are so strongly feeling your own existence?
Aren't you?
You cannot just say that you don't exist,
the people you are talking to probably feel themselves existing and therefore suspect that you do as well.
And if you do exist your brain becomes more than just a flow of electrons through logical channels, it becomes a spirit as well.

And if you are experiencing yourself,
then that adds yet another mystery to life,
why are we here?
Why aren't we just intelligent robots?
Because that's what we should be according to the logic we have come up with in this world.

According to science the soul shouldn't exist,
the double split experiment shouldn't have the results it has and there shouldn't be any planks constant.
Still all those hold true.


I agree nonetheless that our actions can become very predictable if you know enough about how we work and what knowledge we have and all that.
It's like we are a soul inside a computer.

Actually, I have heard of the wavy electron. Sure, it seems to add a more random view of how we see things on a quantum level. Naturally, the smaller we go, the less we will understand with definite proof. It doesn't seem to have much of an effect on physics on a larger level though. I guess it's just something that isn't completely understood. I think you are making far too many assumptions as to what it all means. This hardly proves the existence of a soul or anything like that. Just because we don't understand it, doesn't mean there is no pattern to it. Regardless, I'll have to do a little more reading on it to come to a definite conclusion.

How does existence prove a spirit? Why can't we just be biological robots? That's the way it seems to me. Like I said, you're making too many assumptions based on possible misinterpretations. From what I've seen, humans act very much like biological robots, as you mentioned by talking about the predictability of people. I do see the computer, but the soul may or may not be there, I just don't know.

It doesn't add a random view, it completely contradicts everything we think we know.
This is not supposed to be possible.

The experiment wasn't what i used to find out that there is a soul. The existence of my own soul is what convinces me of it.
But off course i will never be able to give any arguments for it being so.
It's just something that i feel.

Could you ever explain to anyone how you experience the color purple?

Christ on a stick.

I would have responded, but muddling through the initial post was utilizing more energy than I cared to expend.

%u201CBe the change you want to see in the world.%u201D
~ Mahatma Gandhi

Most people tend to wait for the comming of a messiah or something that saves them from oppression.

The thing is, we all have that potential, but only a few have the spiritual strenght to go through it.

"Could you ever explain to anyone how you experience the color purple?"


Yes, #660099

I'd like to believe that I'm more than just a product of my environment, but I'm probably not. I'd like to think that the things I do prove some how that I CAN choose, but they probably don't. I'd like to destroy the world someday. I probably won't affect it at all.

@fred

#660099 is not how you experience the color purple.
thats just a symbol used to represent it.

Im talking about the actual perception.



@PatheticBill
but you can now believe that you have the ability to reason, even when the results of that reasoning are not to your liking.

Most people donīt have that.