Does Free Will Exist?
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:05 pm
Or are we determined in everything we do by genetics and environment?
DISCUSS
DISCUSS
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:10 pm
Bomb thrower. If you are seriously interested in a discussion focused on a topic like this, you need to narrow the initial question.
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:11 pm
Free will exists. Playing the genetics card for everything is a copout, and an excuse to elude accountability for actions.
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:13 pm
Eziekial wrote:Bomb thrower. If you are seriously interested in a discussion focused on a topic like this, you need to narrow the initial question.
To what? You either belive free will exists in some form or you don't.
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:29 pm
As for me, I think genetics and brain chemistry make a big impact on you - I know this from personal experience.
I do NOT think that environment makes as big a difference. It is with environmental influences especially (but not exclusively) that free will shows itself. By sheer will and determination we can overcome conditioning from the past, and control our future to at least some extent.
We can also use our will to deal with genetic predispositions, but thats some serious work, for the things that are majorly wired into us anyways.
I do NOT think that environment makes as big a difference. It is with environmental influences especially (but not exclusively) that free will shows itself. By sheer will and determination we can overcome conditioning from the past, and control our future to at least some extent.
We can also use our will to deal with genetic predispositions, but thats some serious work, for the things that are majorly wired into us anyways.
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:33 pm
Are you about to come out of the closet with a big announcement, Yamori? 
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:40 pm
no, he's just compiling a database on all NT posters
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:41 pm
no kidding, i dont trust yamori. i think hes workin for the man... all these fucking questions. 
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:44 pm
Tuggan you're so paranoid... you think everybody is out to get you
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:55 pm
Mindia wrote:Tuggan you're so paranoid... you think everybody is out to get you
we are
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 3:21 pm
Mindia wrote:Are you about to come out of the closet with a big announcement, Yamori?
Somehow I just ever so slightly doubt the maturity of this bunch. Not the type of people you want to be sharing personal secrets with, whatever they may be.
And sheesh people, I'm just trying to start interesting conversations, and I like to know what other people think about things. Is that SO WRONG?
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 3:22 pm
There is free will.
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 3:33 pm
There is illusion of Big free will, and Small free will
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 3:56 pm
Merovingian: Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without.
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 8:30 pm
I believe that every town has a library filled with books and a mandate to get you whatever you want to read (within reason).
We have an internet filled with information (some sites are filled with facts anyway).
There are thousands of scholarships available.
There is mandatory hiring of minorities (which I believe is racist, but that's another thread) so that is no excuse.
Credit is freely given to anyone to use or abuse. You could promote your own business with that.
Free will exists. Create your own destiny. Or don't. The world needs ditchdiggers too, Danny.
We have an internet filled with information (some sites are filled with facts anyway).
There are thousands of scholarships available.
There is mandatory hiring of minorities (which I believe is racist, but that's another thread) so that is no excuse.
Credit is freely given to anyone to use or abuse. You could promote your own business with that.
Free will exists. Create your own destiny. Or don't. The world needs ditchdiggers too, Danny.
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 9:56 pm
Free will doesn't exist.
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 12:22 am
labbats wrote:I believe that every town has a library filled with books and a mandate to get you whatever you want to read (within reason).
We have an internet filled with information (some sites are filled with facts anyway).
There are thousands of scholarships available.
There is mandatory hiring of minorities (which I believe is racist, but that's another thread) so that is no excuse.
Credit is freely given to anyone to use or abuse. You could promote your own business with that.
Free will exists. Create your own destiny. Or don't. The world needs ditchdiggers too, Danny.
you might be a king or a little street sweeper
but sooner or later you dance mit de reaper!
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 4:07 am
<img src="http://www.users.qwest.net/~caran/archive1/m10.gif"></img>
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 10:32 am
brinstar wrote:you might be a king or a little street sweeper
but sooner or later you dance mit de reaper!
I could have sworn it was lonely street sweeper. I'll have to watch the DVD again.
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 11:35 am
I'm of a mind, makes a moogie.
You know...free will does exist. What a silly question.
A better question, would be to ask, "How good are you at controlling your life?"
I believe that it's like a deck of cards, if you will. We are all acting on free will most of the time throughout the day. Even though we are pretty much forced to work, you aren't forced to work where you don't want to.
You get dealt a bad hand sometimes, and it may not be because of your own free will, but it directly involves you because of someone else's decision. At that point, you're in control. You decide how you feel about it, you decide what, if anything to do about it.
We're all making choices every day and when someone dies in a car accident, it's because of the choice someone/several people made. When people get married, hired, fired, when they eat, they watch television, drive or walk...everything is decided by you. When it's not...it's still going to affect you and you always have control over how you deal with it.
You know...free will does exist. What a silly question.
A better question, would be to ask, "How good are you at controlling your life?"
I believe that it's like a deck of cards, if you will. We are all acting on free will most of the time throughout the day. Even though we are pretty much forced to work, you aren't forced to work where you don't want to.
You get dealt a bad hand sometimes, and it may not be because of your own free will, but it directly involves you because of someone else's decision. At that point, you're in control. You decide how you feel about it, you decide what, if anything to do about it.
We're all making choices every day and when someone dies in a car accident, it's because of the choice someone/several people made. When people get married, hired, fired, when they eat, they watch television, drive or walk...everything is decided by you. When it's not...it's still going to affect you and you always have control over how you deal with it.
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 5:57 pm
Genetics plays a bigger part in how people behave than most people believe
Until you have kids, you won't really know what I mean
But my son when he was a week old (ie too young to really learn via mimicry) was displaying a LOT of family traits. he would rub his head a certain way, do certin things with his mouth/tongue that I'd seen in myself, or my grandmother
was kind of spooky actually
Until you have kids, you won't really know what I mean
But my son when he was a week old (ie too young to really learn via mimicry) was displaying a LOT of family traits. he would rub his head a certain way, do certin things with his mouth/tongue that I'd seen in myself, or my grandmother
was kind of spooky actually
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 7:35 pm
It's called sucking one's thumb. And believe me, it's quite common!
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 7:52 pm
come back when you pass the age of 15
Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 2:22 am
I had a very intense conversation a while back with a guy about this very subject. He was very convincing that there is no free will. In an email he gave me then, he summed his arguement up:
Oh, geez. Ok, here we go.
First we must establish how personalities are developed/created. The answer to this is in part related to the laws of conservation and the law of cause and effect.
As to the first, just like energy and matter a personality does not appear from nothing. There has to be something that created it; something that molded and shaped it to be what it is.
As to cause and effect, things do not happen randomly in the universe. There is no such thing as the actual existance of random. Everything has a cause. Therefore your personality was caused by something, your environment.
What we call this (one's personality being created by their environment) is behaviorism. Since we have established that our environment created our personality, and that our personality creates our decisions, we now know that we have no control over anything we do. We are merely a result of the environment.
This leads directly to another theory: determinism. Determinism is the natural progression of behaviorism. If our personality is created by our environment, then all our decisions can be predicted. Although it would be impossible, if someone knew everything that happened in your life (everything, no matter how small) and also knew how every single occurance in life affects one's personality, they could effectively predict every decision you would ever make for the rest of your life.
Hence, my argument.
Examples he gave were your behavior in church, your driving patterns, directions you go ect. It was too long ago to remember his exact words, and I deleted all our conversations, but because of him and his strong stance, I do not believe in free will.
Oh, geez. Ok, here we go.
First we must establish how personalities are developed/created. The answer to this is in part related to the laws of conservation and the law of cause and effect.
As to the first, just like energy and matter a personality does not appear from nothing. There has to be something that created it; something that molded and shaped it to be what it is.
As to cause and effect, things do not happen randomly in the universe. There is no such thing as the actual existance of random. Everything has a cause. Therefore your personality was caused by something, your environment.
What we call this (one's personality being created by their environment) is behaviorism. Since we have established that our environment created our personality, and that our personality creates our decisions, we now know that we have no control over anything we do. We are merely a result of the environment.
This leads directly to another theory: determinism. Determinism is the natural progression of behaviorism. If our personality is created by our environment, then all our decisions can be predicted. Although it would be impossible, if someone knew everything that happened in your life (everything, no matter how small) and also knew how every single occurance in life affects one's personality, they could effectively predict every decision you would ever make for the rest of your life.
Hence, my argument.
Examples he gave were your behavior in church, your driving patterns, directions you go ect. It was too long ago to remember his exact words, and I deleted all our conversations, but because of him and his strong stance, I do not believe in free will.
Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:01 am
I think Yamori spends all his free time watching Waking Life over and over and over.