Will vs free will

[achilles12604]

What is the difference?

[Salt Agent]

For all intents and purposes we do have a choice that is not predetermined.

True, the unpredictability of the human brain makes our choices seem free.

I think that is what I was trying to say except each unfree choice changes the variables and what ever happens has not happened before and therefore it changes the outcome. What seems like a choice is more of an emergence.
Even as we experience something with our brains it has already happened.
There is always something new under the sun.

Evolution plays a large role in our choices as well, you are right. But I think the foundation McCulloch has laid is really the bottom line. Evolution, environment, and genetics really determine our choices. Which choice we make may be unpredictable based on the human mind element. But the choice is still one in which is predetermined based on the 3 factors listed above. I have been searching for one example that might nullify this. And every circumstance I can conceive of only strengthens McCulloch's position.

Every choice really is unfree. Unless one can completely discount evolution and genetics as well as current environmental influences, I can find no choice that is really undetermined. It just seems that way because we can't predict what choice our brain will make. But the choice has already been made.

But the choice is still one in which is predetermined based on the 3 factors listed above. I have been searching for one example that might nullify this. And every circumstance I can conceive of only strengthens McCullochs position.

I had to give the post a rest and think it over -- it started to all mix together. Confused seems to make a good point -- i agree that all choices are affected, or influenced by some combination of genetics and environmental influences, but the hinge pin, or key to the argument is that it influences/affects, but does not determine our choices. Let me try to explain.

Confused/ McCulloch's point is only true when genetic factors, and environmental issues and or past knowledge influence in favor, or positively. This is not true however, when all factors would go against, or contrary to the choice. The problem is giving a perfect example, but Goat is right. Let's take the smoking example and push it a bit further. ** I do not intend this in any way to be derogatory, pejorative, or imply that most American Indians are alcoholics or drug addicts, but using an example of genetic predispositions to create an example. Let's take a kid born into poverty on an Indian reservation in your state of North Carolina, with rampant alcoholism, second generation welfare and high drug abuse, and very low statistics for completing college and every member of his immediate family smokes, and his father and two older siblings are alcoholics. This example of a kid is not only racially and socially disempowered, but lacks the financial resources to go to a private school, or even a better one and 65% of his peers won't even finish high school. He has to mentally override every factor, force, influence, and environmental condition, and even hard statistics for him to choose to not smoke, not drink, and finish school and go to college. This is the person who by free will, overrides all the factors, but they still influence him, but in all the wrong direction -- downward.

Unless one can completely discount evolution and genetics as well as current environmental influences, I can find no choice that is really undetermined.

Unless one can comletely discount Free Will, logic, ability to evaluate consequences, variation within species, emotional maturity, ability to delay gratification, ability to assess risk or rewards, and environmental influences, I can find no choice that is really predetermined.

What about the Polish person in my country, 6th generation Catholic, youngest of five siblings, Catholic by default. Goes to Catholic school, and then as a teen ager, still living at home, decides by his own free will to become a Christian and is disowned by his family, kicked out from his home, and is forced to go to a smaller rural school, which doesn't offer the courses in English, German, and business that can give him an edge. All those forces, [except TOE, that's another thread] are influencing him for sure, but all in the wrong direction. Culture, common sense, environmental factors, logic, stastistics all push him away from this free will choice. How can you even remotely imply/believe that these choices are predetermined, or that evolution, or any other factor actually determined these choices.

What about the person [Latino born in the US, who is gay, son of an illegal migrant worker]who is the only one in their immediate family, or extended family for three generations, to cross party lines and vote for the candidate on the other side, when it means personal cost to him, financially for increased taxes, and socially and culturally when his community, church and co-workers are all the other party, and yet the candidate he votes for is opposite every single issue that he values, --Immigration, Health Care, Taxes, Foreign Policy, War, Energy/Environmental Issues, Gay Rights, and Social Issues, except the issue of abortion, which he feels deeply is a non-negotiable moral issue.

We could argue about his choices/reasons for being gay, or his belief about abortion, but that is completely missing the point. All the reasons Confused and McCulluch give, still affect him and or influence his decision, but every single factor, even common sense and the law is going against him. His choice to vote will cost him personally, socially, financially, possibly his father arrested and deported, face more struggle confusion/ harrassment for being gay, and being ostracized by his community and family.

It is completely ludricrous to imagine that his choice is predetermined by "theory of Evolution" or environment, or social norms, or cultural, just as it is ludicrous to pretend that the seven or eight people who have posted here cannot choose to respond to this post, or that their choice to reply is "an illusion of free will" or that a new person posting is evolution at work.

My post here is overriding factors of time, sacrificing sleep, worries about what they will think because i don't accept Darwinian evolution, cultural norms, environmental issues, and your right to believe what you want, lash out, poke holes at the examples, try to make them racist, or anti-republican, or anti-Polish, or anti-male or whatever you want, is directly related to your free will. It is precisely Confused and Goat and McCulloch and my free will that allows us to dialogue and respond to show someone's argument to be fallacious.

It is precisely your free will which allows you to decide to overlook misspelled words in this post or to even use the spellcheck feature, to respond or not, to address the points or to correct misplaced modifiers and to declare that no one has free will in order to avoid accountability for decisions. Your post, what ever it may contain, proves your free will.

No one is forcing you to respond, or to even address a point in this thread. You can override environmental factors to determine if you want to respond, or if you want to rather only address spelling issues, or decide if those are worth your time, or if you want to try to find empirical evidence evaluated by a panel of peers to show proof that one doesn't have free will.


I find it highly entertaining and ironic that Calvinists choose to be Calvinists and vehemently deny that anyone has free will.

I believe in predestination. A small percentage of people were predestined to have Free Will and be accountable for their choices. Of these, some can choose to deny it -- either the accountablility or the Free Will.


SA

[Confused]

For all intents and purposes we do have a choice that is not predetermined.

True, the unpredictability of the human brain makes our choices seem free.

I think that is what I was trying to say except each unfree choice changes the variables and what ever happens has not happened before and therefore it changes the outcome. What seems like a choice is more of an emergence.
Even as we experience something with our brains it has already happened.
There is always something new under the sun.

Evolution plays a large role in our choices as well, you are right. But I think the foundation McCulloch has laid is really the bottom line. Evolution, environment, and genetics really determine our choices. Which choice we make may be unpredictable based on the human mind element. But the choice is still one in which is predetermined based on the 3 factors listed above. I have been searching for one example that might nullify this. And every circumstance I can conceive of only strengthens McCulloch's position.

Every choice really is unfree. Unless one can completely discount evolution and genetics as well as current environmental influences, I can find no choice that is really undetermined. It just seems that way because we can't predict what choice our brain will make. But the choice has already been made.

But the choice is still one in which is predetermined based on the 3 factors listed above. I have been searching for one example that might nullify this. And every circumstance I can conceive of only strengthens McCullochs position.

I had to give the post a rest and think it over -- it started to all mix together. Confused seems to make a good point -- i agree that all choices are affected, or influenced by some combination of genetics and environmental influences, but the hinge pin, or key to the argument is that it influences/affects, but does not determine our choices. Let me try to explain.

Confused/ McCulloch's point is only true when genetic factors, and environmental issues and or past knowledge influence in favor, or positively. This is not true however, when all factors would go against, or contrary to the choice. The problem is giving a perfect example, but Goat is right. Let's take the smoking example and push it a bit further. ** I do not intend this in any way to be derogatory, pejorative, or imply that most American Indians are alcoholics or drug addicts, but using an example of genetic predispositions to create an example. Let's take a kid born into poverty on an Indian reservation in your state of North Carolina, with rampant alcoholism, second generation welfare and high drug abuse, and very low statistics for completing college and every member of his immediate family smokes, and his father and two older siblings are alcoholics. This example of a kid is not only racially and socially disempowered, but lacks the financial resources to go to a private school, or even a better one and 65% of his peers won't even finish high school. He has to mentally override every factor, force, influence, and environmental condition, and even hard statistics for him to choose to not smoke, not drink, and finish school and go to college. This is the person who by free will, overrides all the factors, but they still influence him, but in all the wrong direction -- downward.

Just as Eskimos do, Native Amerians also lack a necessary enzyme to break down alchohol leading to a higher incidence of alcoholism. Either way, your example here only highlights the effects of nature vs nurture and I fail to see how it negates anything. In some cases nature can override nurture (ASPD). In other cases it can be vice versa. But they are still deterministic factors.

Unless one can completely discount evolution and genetics as well as current environmental influences, I can find no choice that is really undetermined.

Unless one can completely discount Free Will, logic, ability to evaluate consequences, variation within species, emotional maturity, ability to delay gratification, ability to assess risk or rewards, and environmental influences, I can find no choice that is really predetermined.

What about the Polish person in my country, 6th generation Catholic, youngest of five siblings, Catholic by default. Goes to Catholic school, and then as a teen ager, still living at home, decides by his own free will to become a Christian and is disowned by his family, kicked out from his home, and is forced to go to a smaller rural school, which doesn't offer the courses in English, German, and business that can give him an edge. All those forces, [except TOE, that's another thread] are influencing him for sure, but all in the wrong direction. Culture, common sense, environmental factors, logic, stastistics all push him away from this free will choice. How can you even remotely imply/believe that these choices are predetermined, or that evolution, or any other factor actually determined these choices.

What about the person [Latino born in the US, who is gay, son of an illegal migrant worker]who is the only one in their immediate family, or extended family for three generations, to cross party lines and vote for the candidate on the other side, when it means personal cost to him, financially for increased taxes, and socially and culturally when his community, church and co-workers are all the other party, and yet the candidate he votes for is opposite every single issue that he values, --Immigration, Health Care, Taxes, Foreign Policy, War, Energy/Environmental Issues, Gay Rights, and Social Issues, except the issue of abortion, which he feels deeply is a non-negotiable moral issue.

We could argue about his choices/reasons for being gay, or his belief about abortion, but that is completely missing the point. All the reasons Confused and McCulluch give, still affect him and or influence his decision, but every single factor, even common sense and the law is going against him. His choice to vote will cost him personally, socially, financially, possibly his father arrested and deported, face more struggle confusion/ harrassment for being gay, and being ostracized by his community and family.

It is completely ludricrous to imagine that his choice is predetermined by "theory of Evolution" or environment, or social norms, or cultural, just as it is ludicrous to pretend that the seven or eight people who have posted here cannot choose to respond to this post, or that their choice to reply is "an illusion of free will" or that a new person posting is evolution at work.

My post here is overriding factors of time, sacrificing sleep, worries about what they will think because i don't accept Darwinian evolution, cultural norms, environmental issues, and your right to believe what you want, lash out, poke holes at the examples, try to make them racist, or anti-republican, or anti-Polish, or anti-male or whatever you want, is directly related to your free will. It is precisely Confused and Goat and McCulloch and my free will that allows us to dialogue and respond to show someone's argument to be fallacious.

It is precisely your free will which allows you to decide to overlook misspelled words in this post or to even use the spellcheck feature, to respond or not, to address the points or to correct misplaced modifiers and to declare that no one has free will in order to avoid accountability for decisions. Your post, what ever it may contain, proves your free will.

No one is forcing you to respond, or to even address a point in this thread. You can override environmental factors to determine if you want to respond, or if you want to rather only address spelling issues, or decide if those are worth your time, or if you want to try to find empirical evidence evaluated by a panel of peers to show proof that one doesn't have free will.


I find it highly entertaining and ironic that Calvinists choose to be Calvinists and vehemently deny that anyone has free will.

I believe in predestination. A small percentage of people were predestined to have Free Will and be accountable for their choices. Of these, some can choose to deny it -- either the accountablility or the Free Will.


SA

And again, you miss the point. Do a good thread a favor and let it die with dignity.

[Salt Agent]

Dear Confused,

Sorry for the long previous post. That was due to the three examples. I see that you read the one about Native Americans and thanks for the extra details that i was missing.

Just as Eskimos do, Native Amerians also lack a necessary enzyme to break down alchohol leading to a higher incidence of alcoholism. Either way, your example here only highlights the effects of nature vs nurture and I fail to see how it negates anything. In some cases nature can override nurture (ASPD). In other cases it can be vice versa. But they are still deterministic factors.

My example was not nature vs nurture, as you say but nature, nurture, culture, ethnic and social norms etc etc, all pushing down/against the choice of the Free Will. You misunderstood. They often are determining factors, but clearly as i have given examples, these would all cause/influence away from or directly opposite from the free will choice. The Free will overrides these factors.

Just as i stated, the fact that you could/would address one example and ignore the other examples, proves your free will.

How do you propose that evolution or any other factor prevented you from making a choice. Here is where the argument collapses. I have said all along that yes, there are outside factors that influence us and the choices we make, but the fact that we "are limited" to choose from 31 flavors of ice cream, in no way makes the choice predetermined, or shows it was "an illusion" of free will.

I totally respect your right to believe what ever you want, including anything about Free will or the lack. You made the statement that you couldn't think of any examples of true free choice. The examples i gave show these factors at work, but they work opposite or against the free choice made, which shows that a person cognitively chooses of their own free.

You choose to address one point. Now you're stating that evolution made you do it? Or was the choice to respond an illusion? I am not trying to be sarcastic. I just don't understand what you mean. How was this choice predetermined?

Again you miss the point. Do a good thread a favor and let it die with dignity

Did you even read the other two examples and the closing points? Which evolutionary aspect would make a Polish person abandon his culture, and be disowned by his family to accept Christianity?
Which genetic defect or mutation would make a person vote for a candidate that means great loss and personal cost to himself. How is that Nurture vs Nature there? If what you said were true about evolution, then he should vote for the person who was most supportive of gay rights --self preservation.

I think the point is to debate issues in a civil manner, "not let threads die with dignity. "

Lastly, in all due respect you state i missed the point. I gave examples and you ignored two. You have failed to give empirical evidence which proves that no one truly has free will, or that all our choices are predetermined.

respectfully,
SA

[Confused]

Dear Confused,

Sorry for the long previous post. That was due to the three examples. I see that you read the one about Native Americans and thanks for the extra details that i was missing.

Just as Eskimos do, Native Amerians also lack a necessary enzyme to break down alchohol leading to a higher incidence of alcoholism. Either way, your example here only highlights the effects of nature vs nurture and I fail to see how it negates anything. In some cases nature can override nurture (ASPD). In other cases it can be vice versa. But they are still deterministic factors.

No problem.

My example was not nature vs nurture, as you say but nature, nurture, culture, ethnic and social norms etc etc, all pushing down/against the choice of the Free Will. You misunderstood. They often are determining factors, but clearly as i have given examples, these would all cause/influence away from or directly opposite from the free will choice. The Free will overrides these factors.

Sociology considers all factors in nature. They consider culture, norms, etc... So I didn't miss the point, I just conveyed it poorly. My apologies.

Just as i stated, the fact that you could/would address one example and ignore the other examples, proves your free will.

It is a mere illusion of free will. You choice is still limited to two options, hence deterministic. What accounts for the illusion of free will is the unpredictably in which choice you will make.

How do you propose that evolution or any other factor prevented you from making a choice. Here is where the argument collapses. I have said all along that yes, there are outside factors that influence us and the choices we make, but the fact that we "are limited" to choose from 31 flavors of ice cream, in no way makes the choice predetermined, or shows it was "an illusion" of free will.

You are oversimplifying a complex issue. Evolution would lead the person to choose which flavor of ice cream give the species the most likely benefit of survival. It isn't the "limited" here. It is the notion that one choice favors survival over another. Trying to use ice cream as an example is nonsensical.

I totally respect your right to believe what ever you want, including anything about Free will or the lack. You made the statement that you couldn't think of any examples of true free choice. The examples i gave show these factors at work, but they work opposite or against the free choice made, which shows that a person cognitively chooses of their own free.

No, it didn't.

You choose to address one point. Now you're stating that evolution made you do it? Or was the choice to respond an illusion? I am not trying to be sarcastic. I just don't understand what you mean. How was this choice predetermined?

I chose the point that offered me the greatest option of coming out ahead. Evolution. Survival of the fittest.

Again you miss the point. Do a good thread a favor and let it die with dignity

Did you even read the other two examples and the closing points? Which evolutionary aspect would make a Polish person abandon his culture, and be disowned by his family to accept Christianity?

You are asking me to read the mind of a person who is non-existent to me.

Which genetic defect or mutation would make a person vote for a candidate that means great loss and personal cost to himself.

Pick any from the DSM IV.

How is that Nurture vs Nature there? If what you said were true about evolution, then he should vote for the person who was most supportive of gay rights --self preservation.

Again, you oversimplify the issue. Voting merely on one issue works against self preservation.

I think the point is to debate issues in a civil manner, "not let threads die with dignity. "

Lastly, in all due respect you state i missed the point. I gave examples and you ignored two. You have failed to give empirical evidence which proves that no one truly has free will, or that all our choices are predetermined.

respectfully,
SA

Review the past posts. The evidence is presented Those with genetic disorders lives are predetermined. My CML makes my life predetermined. ASPD makes that persons life predetermined. The past pages have presented ample evidence from myself, McCulloch, and Goat amongst others.

On a side note: If my post came across harsh, I apologize, I didn't intend for the wording to imply such. Reviewing it, I can see how it might come across that way.