There is something I find an absolute shame for any human being to blindly accept: Enslavement to their environment.

Whatever sort of religious outlook you prescribe to, even if it's the atheistic lack of deity, you are placing yourself into a pathetic stance when you refuse to accept your free will.

To those of you who don't believe in volition, are you to say that you are not responsible for your life? Do you honestly believe you are nothing but a product of environment? That the circumstances of your life are not your own doing?

What childishness is it to blame your indecision on fate, on parents, on upbringing, on government, on the world, on a god? What selfishness is it to continue living and feeding upon the world, while blaming it for your problems?

Are you too blind and frightened to understand and work within the reality that you are a free being, able to choose how your life plays out? Are you too frightened to accept responsibility for your troubles?

So you have a job you dislike? Instead of complaining about the job, find another one. Well, you might say: But I need this job to support my family! Well, fuck you. You decided to partake in actions that led to a family - if atop this you chose a career to support them, you are living YOUR choices...not a god's, not fate's, nothing but your own choices.

So, you have children, and despite your aggrivation with how you were raised, it's 'all you know'. Well, fool, awaken yourself to something called creativity - how do you suppose inventions came about? By working only with 'all they knew'? Use your fucking head to examine needs and wants of your children and yourself - you don't have to follow any footsteps, you are free to walk your own path.

Of what pathetic mental construct are you incapable of realizing you are a spiritual being, capable of rising above environment? Have you not read, heard, and witnessed millions of people overcoming their environment through determined will? Slaves born into that life, escaping; povert men and women, enriching; ignorant folk, educating; stranded souls, navigating...what more will it take for you to accept your ability to rise beyond the physical realm and create a spiritual tool of your own in order to conquer all the troubles in your life?

Death is all that you cannot conquer - the rest is clay for your spiritual hands to mold.

Each of us humans are bound to this world through life, yet we can grasp beyond with our creativity and imagination - we can craft that which does not yet exist, be it idea, object, or location (through coitus, new individuals as well). We can choose freely what it is we create, and we can choose just as freely to create nothing and remain planted to the soil both of body and mind. What choose you?

I tend to vacilate between the two. Nice post though.

What is this "free will" of which you speak? Where is it and where does it come from? Are humans unique in having free will or do animals, insects, trees, and water have it too? How could we differentiate the results of free will from randomness?

Is it the nondeterministic random element of cognition, such that a dice has "free will" over what face it shows?

Or is it the deterministic calculation element, as in the calculator's "free will" to show the same output given the same input every time?

If you answer "neither", and human cognition incorporates both such elements, why bother positing a third element?

What exactly does this have to do with spiritualism? You seem to be ordering us to do what we want with our lives, but I don't see where you've shown this to be something spiritually based.

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

To those of you who don't believe in volition, are you to say that you are not responsible for your life? Do you honestly believe you are nothing but a product of environment? That the circumstances of your life are not your own doing?

Environment, genes, and chance.

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

What childishness is it to blame your indecision on fate, on parents, on upbringing, on government, on the world, on a god?

I can disbelieve in free will and still be decisive.

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

What selfishness is it to continue living and feeding upon the world, while blaming it for your problems?

Since the alternative to living in the world is death, is that your recommendation?

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

Are you too blind and frightened to understand and work within the reality that you are a free being, able to choose how your life plays out? Are you too frightened to accept responsibility for your troubles?

Nope, I just believe the world is bigger than I am. Do you really think that someone in the middle of a war or a depression ( for example ) can make all his problems go away by sheer will ?



quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

So you have a job you dislike? Instead of complaining about the job, find another one. Well, you might say: But I need this job to support my family! Well, fuck you. You decided to partake in actions that led to a family - if atop this you chose a career to support them, you are living YOUR choices...not a god's, not fate's, nothing but your own choices.

Ah, I can feel your compassion from here. You seem an advocate of sociopathy, not free will or "spirituality".

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

So, you have children, and despite your aggrivation with how you were raised, it's 'all you know'. Well, fool, awaken yourself to something called creativity - how do you suppose inventions came about? By working only with 'all they knew'? Use your fucking head to examine needs and wants of your children and yourself - you don't have to follow any footsteps, you are free to walk your own path.

What ?

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

Of what pathetic mental construct are you incapable of realizing you are a spiritual being, capable of rising above environment? Have you not read, heard, and witnessed millions of people overcoming their environment through determined will? Slaves born into that life, escaping; povert men and women, enriching; ignorant folk, educating; stranded souls, navigating...what more will it take for you to accept your ability to rise beyond the physical realm and create a spiritual tool of your own in order to conquer all the troubles in your life?

Superhuman powers. No, I am not a "spiritual being, capable of rising above environment"; no one is. I'm flesh and blood, like everyone else. I have limits, and no amount of effort will let me exceed those limits. No one can "rise beyond the physical realm", and there's no such thing as a "spiritual tool".

Exactly as the poster before said: without free will, one can still be decisive as is expressed through all conscious life. What would a non-decisive being even act like?

The kicker is this, some people are positively decisive and some are apathetic toward 'taking control' of their life. Yet, neither had the free will to decide to be the former or the latter kind of person.

free will doesnt exist

quote:Originally posted by Martini:

What is this "free will" of which you speak? Where is it and where does it come from? Are humans unique in having free will or do animals, insects, trees, and water have it too? How could we differentiate the results of free will from randomness?

Is it the nondeterministic random element of cognition, such that a dice has "free will" over what face it shows?

Or is it the deterministic calculation element, as in the calculator's "free will" to show the same output given the same input every time?

If you answer "neither", and human cognition incorporates both such elements, why bother positing a third element?

What exactly does this have to do with spiritualism? You seem to be ordering us to do what we want with our lives, but I don't see where you've shown this to be something spiritually based.



It's the ability of a cognitive mind to create new faces; the ability of the cognitive mind to completely absorb the input and then entirely ignore it when the output is decided - all by the spiritual tools crafted and utilized at will.

The two elements you posited are severely limited forms of thought - they both remind me of mental disorders in which the individual suffering the disorder has no control over their reaction to environment - some major ones related to this are bipolarity and split personality; the individual makes no spiritual effort to control themself, thus they're left as a product of environment - swaying from mood to mood, persona to persona, as their input changes from one trigger stimuli to another.

Environment, genes, and chance.

Pathetic. So, if you kill someone, you're a rotten egg with shitty genes and a streak of bad luck? Fuck you. You chose to kill someone. YOU are responsible for your existence; not your upbringing or social arena, not your genetics (this does contribute to diseases, mind you), nor luck. You choose what fears you overcome, what paths are open and closed, what choices are valid to you.

You've chosen to remain fearful of your responsibility, closing off paths that don't coincide with your constructed belief of determination, invalidating an entire throng of completely useful options...including the option to craft an entirely new set of options.

I can disbelieve in free will and still be decisive.

No, YOU can't, but fate can - if you have no free will, then every last 'decision' you make is nothing but a reaction, a forced production of the initiation of the Universe.

Since the alternative to living in the world is death, is that your recommendation?

The alternative, dipshit, is to quit making shitty choices. Use the brain you were born with to craft and examine new choices; to examine and narrow down choices; and to choose the best option available or created.

Nope, I just believe the world is bigger than I am. Do you really think that someone in the middle of a war or a depression ( for example ) can make all his problems go away by sheer will ?

Yes. War: Suicide for immediate relief - fighting; whether he dies or win, his problem is gone; backstabbing, quickly ends a battle and can shift entire wars towards a quicker end. I'm sure there are more available options here...

Depression: You mean fiscal or emotional?

Ah, I can feel your compassion from here. You seem an advocate of sociopathy, not free will or "spirituality".

I'm an advocate of an open mind - sociopathy is certainly an option available, but again, it is arrived at through freely crafted and utilized spiritual tools.

What ?

A half assed argument against environmental control...meant for nothing but to get a ball rolling. Probably failed though, heh.

Superhuman powers. No, I am not a "spiritual being, capable of rising above environment"; no one is. I'm flesh and blood, like everyone else. I have limits, and no amount of effort will let me exceed those limits. No one can "rise beyond the physical realm", and there's no such thing as a "spiritual tool".

Well then, have fun with your life of reaction and distraction from truth.

Maybe something that can help: Science, the pursuit of knowledge, is based upon a clear linear progression by logical switches. There are possibilities and probabilities within science, with the only certainties being conditionary 'if-thens'.

Life, for humanity atleast, is based upon a web of non-linear, non-progressive, illogical nodes that have no necessary connection with any other node. The only time any sort of pattern is apparent in life, is when an individual limits themself to living a pattern by submitting to their physical being.

You're free to remain reactive and nothing more; it's clear that you are comfortable being a portion of what you are.

quote:

So, if you kill someone, you're a rotten egg with shitty genes and a streak of bad luck? Fuck you. You chose to kill someone. YOU are responsible for your existence; not your upbringing or social arena, not your genetics (this does contribute to diseases, mind you), nor luck. You choose what fears you overcome, what paths are open and closed, what choices are valid to you.



Free will hasn't yet been solved by science, but even if it does exist, you can only "decide" between the choices which are known to you, you make the choice you consider to be the best one. This is ultimately determined by the shaping of your mind by previous experience. Nobody kills anyone because they thought it was the wrong choice, it's hindsight (more information) that makes it the wrong choice.

quote:

No, YOU can't, but fate can - if you have no free will, then every last 'decision' you make is nothing but a reaction, a forced production of the initiation of the Universe.



Maybe so, who knows? Perhaps awareness of free will is actually only a side-effect.

quote:

Use the brain you were born with to craft and examine new choices; to examine and narrow down choices; and to choose the best option available or created.



New ideas don't come from nowhere, they're built from old ideas. So the logical step is to expose your mind to as many new ideas as possible, then you'll have a broader range of options available and hopefully be able to make *fewer* shitty choices. It's important that people value this so they can work on their own development, and they certainly weren't "born with" this understanding.

quote:

The only time any sort of pattern is apparent in life, is when an individual limits themself to living a pattern by submitting to their physical being.

You're free to remain reactive and nothing more; it's clear that you are comfortable being a portion of what you are.



The brain is just a complex pattern recognition system. We're purely reactive, even when being proactive you're still reacting to an idea formed from the things you have learned in your life.

The importance is to know that you have limitations even if you're not aware of them, and that every choice you make is relatively shitty one chosen from a finite set of options held in your small ape brain.

Free will hasn't yet been solved by science, but even if it does exist, you can only "decide" between the choices which are known to you, you make the choice you consider to be the best one. This is ultimately determined by the shaping of your mind by previous experience. Nobody kills anyone because they thought it was the wrong choice, it's hindsight (more information) that makes it the wrong choice.

I agree you can only choose an option you know to exist - but that's where creating options comes into play. The mind isn't merely a pattern recognition system, as you state later - it is a bio-computer, capable of virtualizing new ideas, new constructs, new options without any thought existing to past ideas, past construct, or past options. I believe you fail to understand that the difficulty of breaking from slave mentality does not make a free mentality impossible.

You ARE capable of imagining options, constructs, and ideas that you never knew existed.

And yes, hindsight is 20/20 - it's the examination of the past that allows us to make informed choices for the future, but the past does not regulate present nor future thought - for if it did, you would be able to know from the present ALL things that happened in the past, and ALL things that are to happen. There is a free factor in the progression of this world, and that factor is the imagination - which follows no progression, no rules, no logic, no boundaries.

It is the raw unleashing of the imagination that forms entirely new and unbound ideas - it is then the job of the individual to form these ideas into a workable option by applying realistic restraints to it.

Man dreamed of reaching and exploring planets long before aircraft existed (if you can show me the old ideas this came from, i'll kill myself in your honor) - by applying realistic constraints to the idea, and utilizing old ideas, a new option was conceptualized, adhered to, and realized.

One example of billions.

The importance is to know that you have limitations even if you're not aware of them, and that every choice you make is relatively shitty one chosen from a finite set of options held in your small ape brain.

Free will does not necessitate an infinite set of known options - merely an infinite set of options.

The differentiating factor between a concieved option and an available option is whether it is truly impossible or even slightly possible - probability doesn't mean shit when it comes to the utility of a dream.

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

You chose to kill someone. YOU are responsible for your existence; not your upbringing or social arena, not your genetics (this does contribute to diseases, mind you), nor luck. You choose what fears you overcome, what paths are open and closed, what choices are valid to you.

No, I don't. I don't control my genes, I had no control over my early environment, and I am surrounded by a world far larger and more powerful than I am. Our consciousness is only a thin veneer over our minds, and our minds are tiny specks in a vast universe.

I have responsibility for what I can control, which isn't much.

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

You've chosen to remain fearful of your responsibility, closing off paths that don't coincide with your constructed belief of determination, invalidating an entire throng of completely useful options...including the option to craft an entirely new set of options.[b]

And you know this how ? You know little or nothing about me.



quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

[b]No, YOU can't, but fate can - if you have no free will, then every last 'decision' you make is nothing but a reaction, a forced production of the initiation of the Universe.

Same thing; I am part of the universe, after all.



quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

Depression: You mean fiscal or emotional?

Fiscal.



quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

I'm an advocate of an open mind - sociopathy is certainly an option available, but again, it is arrived at through freely crafted and utilized spiritual tools.

No, it's from a defective brain or upbringing or both. And there's no such thing as a "spiritual tool", or a spiritual anything.

Free will is a useful delusion. As the line goes, "We all believe in free will - we have no choice." It's hard talking at all about human behavior without using the language of free will, which in by opinion is precisely why we do so - most of us are trying to live our lives, not spend large amounts of time carefully crafting our sentences to exclude the concept of free will.

I believe that it's a useful delusion because it serves as a cover for the immensely complex processes in our minds that lead to our decisions. If we were aware of those processes consciously, we'd be overwhelmed by the details, and unable to function. It would be like trying to walk while being aware of and controlling every last muscle and nerve, instead of just deciding to "get up and go over there".

quote:It is the raw unleashing of the imagination that forms entirely new and unbound ideas - it is then the job of the individual to form these ideas into a workable option by applying realistic restraints to it.

Man dreamed of reaching and exploring planets long before aircraft existed (if you can show me the old ideas this came from, i'll kill myself in your honor) - by applying realistic constraints to the idea, and utilizing old ideas, a new option was conceptualized, adhered to, and realized.



What I'm getting at is the idea that there are many planets out there combined with the romantic idea of exploration builds the idea of exploring the many planets that may be out there. The idea of exploring new planets would not occur to someone in a tribe who believes that the earth is flat, and all other tribes are the enemies not worth meeting.

If there were no flying animals, I doubt people would have been inspired to waste their lives inventing flying machines.

quote:

Free will does not necessitate an infinite set of known options - merely an infinite set of options.



There are an infinite number of *possible* options, but only a small number are ever considered. Or are you saying free will decides which options are brought forward for consideration? If free will exists, it has to do with considering the available options, which are brought forward for consideration by subconscious processes which the 'self' is unaware of.

On top of that, for reasons unknown to the self, some options are favoured more than others. Can you choose your favourite colour, the things which scare you and those that turn you on?

I don't think we can completely rule out free will, because when faced with a decision you can't just say "sera sera I'm a determinist case, I'll choose whatever I choose"; refusing to excercise free will is free will its self. However, you can't choose an option which isn't presented to you by your subconscious mind, so in that respect free will can only operate within the bounds of your small mind.

quote:

The differentiating factor between a concieved option and an available option is whether it is truly impossible or even slightly possible - probability doesn't mean shit when it comes to the utility of a dream.

Past experience does though. You can't imagine a colour that you've never experienced, I'm fairly certain blind people can even imagine a colour in the first place.