--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Yifu" <yifuxero@> wrote: > > > > > > ...I'm on the free will side, but don't see how the question > > > can be resolved logically. > > > > IMO only those indulging in confirmation bias believe > > that ANY philosophical question can be "resolved." :-) > > Besides, attempts to "prove" that there is or is not > such a thing as free will strike me as the kind of > thing a catechist would do -- declare that only one > answer can be correct or true, and for everyone. I > am less limited, and can see that it might be an > individual thang, with some having free will and > others not having it. >
Perhaps. Perhaps not. However, believing that one has free will is different from actually having it. > To provide a completely theoretical example of how > this could work, say there was a deranged bag lady > who had taken offense at some perceived minor slight > years ago, and had as a result cyberstalked the person > she believed slighted her for, say, seventeen years, > spending during most of that time 25% to 50% of her > weekly posting allotment trying to "get" him. I think > we would agree that such a person has no free will, > because no one who indulged in such embarrassing > behavior and had the free will to change it would > fail to *not* change it. Continuing the embarrassing > behavior for that long can legitimately be seen as a > kind of proof that *for that particular cyberstalker* > there is no free will. > > On the other hand, if the stalkee refused to play the > game and ignored the cyberstalker as if her and her > attempts to "get" him affected his life about as much > as finding one's path blocked by a puddle of flea piss > would, and focused on his life, well that individual > obviously has free will. I don't view this as pure free will -- nor a real life example. The names have been changed to protect the innocent as Dragnet says, but in this case the characters also it would seem. Regardless ..., when does one do what they think is sub optimal, not choose the best option, act outside of their values, act outside if the thoughts that they have? I tend to think that the answer is very rarely to never. If one can only choose to make the best decision that they can in any moment, with given resources (time being a large one -- that is, best overall decision given 3 hrs to ponder it vs 3 seconds may result in a different decision made, however, even the 3 second snap judgement was the persons best efforts given the time allotted.) The decisions that we make, first only come from limited options -- that is the thoughts that precedes the action. No one has thoughts of all possible options for each action. Maybe 4 thoughts / options are revealed out of a billion. So free will is quite limited fr om that first step. Next how do we evaluate those thought / options? >From our experience, education, logical and intuitive capabilities, our >subconscious processes, advice from our friends, our samskaras, our compassion >or greed, and our VALUES, we generally choose the one option that we think >best maximizes our values. Even if its self-destructive, we choose that >because we think that it will bring us greater happiness (now, or overall, >longer run). What mind can choose to pursue field of lesser happiness relative >to the other options presented? It is in this sense that I think free will is >highly limited o non-existent. We can only do what we think is best out o the >few possibilities that our mind presents to us. It may APPEAR as if we are deciding. The intellect knows the drill. It pounces on the options that the mind presents and "freely" (it thinks) weighs this and that and after much thrashing around makes a decision. However, the intellect and its drills, its processes, are simply learned responses and/or neurologically hard-wired. Its like saying a PC processor has free will because it is doing a lot of calculations, a lot of thinking, to come up with its answer. However, given the same problem, it will ALWAYS do the same thing, come up with the same answer. Just like the intellect. However, IMO, free will does NOT imply determinism in the sense that there is some diety that is planning our every move. It is like a pinball. it has no freewill to decide where its going to go, its actions are bound by its nature th the nature of forces it encounters. But no one can predict the exact path of the pinball. (Same for pool balls at the break). Thus the experience "there is no actor" is quite valid. Awareness of Awareness AND similtaneously the mind, senses, intellect all go about the day's business, each acting according to its own nature, mixing it up with itself, its neighbor inner components and the external world. > > So it seems to me that the question of free will is > an individual thang, a lot like the question of having > charisma or creativity or intelligence. Some of us got > it, others don't. > > :-) >
