Determinism & Free Will

[Pig]

What do you guys think about Determinism?  It's basically a scientific philosophy that takes cause and effect to its natural conclusion.  But why should I explain it when Wikipedia already has:

Determinism is often taken to mean simply causal determinism: an idea known in physics as cause-and-effect. It is the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state (of an object or event) is completely, or at least to some large degree, determined by prior states.

Outside of some belly-who in quantum physics, this has been the true and honest scientific conclusion since Isaac Newton.

This is especially interesting because it means free will is an illusion.  And if we do not have free will we cannot be morally accountable for our actions, thus both pride and shame are illogical.

[Queen Victoria]

Pig, can you buy a comic book or something?  All your weighty topics are doing my head in.

[Adam]

I don't believe in free will

But I do believe that we have to live our lives as if free will DOES exist, so that society etc can function properly

but technically I believe free will is an illusion, yes

[Pig]

Pig, can you buy a comic book or something?  All your weighty topics are doing my head in.

I like Mort Weisinger era Superman.  If I can think clearly enough maybe I can dissect a plot of one of those stories. 

I find comic books more threatening than death.

I don't believe in free will

But I do believe that we have to live our lives as if free will DOES exist, so that society etc can function properly

but technically I believe free will is an illusion, yes

Why must we believe in free will if it is an intellectually unsound concept?

[Adam]

We don't have to believe in it, but we have to act as if it does exist

People can't be excused everything they do, just because they have no control over things in the way people traditionally think

I mean there are reasons for saying it is wrong to do this or that, and putting people off acting in ways that are harmful to others. Therefore we need to respond to those things as if they ARE based on free will. to deter people as much as we can from doing it

[Adam]

Individually, people might have no control over their actions. But as a society we can influence people's behaviour by making things socially unacceptable or not worth the consequences

[Queen Victoria]

Pig, can you buy a comic book or something?  All your weighty topics are doing my head in.

I like Mort Weisinger era Superman.  If I can think clearly enough maybe I can dissect a plot of one of those stories. 

I find comic books more threatening than death.

I was just trying to be a smart ass.  I can't do deep thinking and couldn't argue my way out of a paper bag.  Never could argue "intellectual" things. 

[Pig]

We don't have to believe in it, but we have to act as if it does exist

People can't be excused everything they do, just because they have no control over things in the way people traditionally think

I mean there are reasons for saying it is wrong to do this or that, and putting people off acting in ways that are harmful to others. Therefore we need to respond to those things as if they ARE based on free will. to deter people as much as we can from doing it

Can't we just have a simple, non-judgmental rule and punishment system?  We can still hurt people who break the law, let's just reduce the sanctimony.

I was just trying to be a smart ass.  I can't do deep thinking and couldn't argue my way out of a paper bag.  Never could argue "intellectual" things. 

Haha, I can't be an intellectual either.  But I'm feeling super charged with venom tonight and want to keep busy.  Movies and games aren't doing to for me, so arguing about nonsense on the internet will have to be the distraction.

[Adam]

it's not just law and order. Even everyday things.

I live my life as if I have free will even when I'm on my own

i'm too tired for this conversation lol, it's nearly 7am so I'm gonna go to bed. night guys

[Calavera]

I'm determined by factors in and around me to do what I see is good for me and for those I love. That's what you call the illusion of free will.

[Al Swearegen]

I believe that both Free will and Determinism exist
I think the fatalistic view that everything is preconcieved and planned. This is great for those that want to hold store in tarot cards, astrology and such but life is a bit more varied than that, for me to believe that whilst many factor may limit my choices or biase my thinking to a selected range of possibilities i still choose until the day I die and my choices will be mine and not predetiremined.

[Pyraxis]

I think life is a combination of free will and determinism, and some patterns are easier to break than others.

[Calavera]

Why is it a lot of people always "choose" to never kill those they hate? Where's the free will exactly?

Actually, what is free will? That is the question that I think must be answered first before any discussion about this should arise.

[Adam]

I believe that both Free will and Determinism exist
I think the fatalistic view that everything is preconcieved and planned. This is great for those that want to hold store in tarot cards, astrology and such but life is a bit more varied than that, for me to believe that whilst many factor may limit my choices or biase my thinking to a selected range of possibilities i still choose until the day I die and my choices will be mine and not predetiremined.

Not believing in free will doesn't mean everything is pre-conceived and planned, or that you have to buy into shit like astrology etc. It just means I don't think I actually CHOOSE to do any of the things I do. I do it (even down to the tiniest, most insignificant thing), becuase my brain weighs it up and tells me that doing that is better than not doing it.

[Calavera]

I believe that both Free will and Determinism exist
I think the fatalistic view that everything is preconcieved and planned. This is great for those that want to hold store in tarot cards, astrology and such but life is a bit more varied than that, for me to believe that whilst many factor may limit my choices or biase my thinking to a selected range of possibilities i still choose until the day I die and my choices will be mine and not predetiremined.

Not believing in free will doesn't mean everything is pre-conceived and planned, or that you have to buy into shit like astrology etc. It just means I don't think I actually CHOOSE to do any of the things I do. I do it (even down to the tiniest, most insignificant thing), becuase my brain weighs it up and tells me that doing that is better than not doing it.

Yep, from an evolutionary point of view, it makes perfect sense.

In fact, free will looks to me like it's some magical entity that's basically impossible to define properly and that's just forced into existence through imagination and religious "reasoning". It's like believing you have a distinct soul that actually exists as something other than just an abstract. How many secular people believe in souls really? As far as I know, only a very few compared to the number that believe in free will.

Which leads me to wonder why free will must exist if it's ok for souls not to exist.