Free Will?

ilikecats

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Do we have free will? Does anyone know what ray says on the subject? I listened to Sam Harris talk about the subject and it’s psychologicaly destroying me.
 

X3CyO

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Doesnt it go both ways? We have one way that we will live our lives, and as such because there is only one way.
Destiny is plausible, but only something that you can really read into going back.

We make the best choices we possibly can in any period of time, even if it ends up being wrong or whatever and that is what creates the one path.


If we could plug in all the variables, one could determine the decisions we’d make and others as well. Because theres so many varibles though.. probably not perfectable in this lifetime.
 

theLaw

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Do we have free will? Does anyone know what ray says on the subject? I listened to Sam Harris talk about the subject and it’s psychologicaly destroying me.

Just watch some Jordan Peterson to balance it out.........or just allow yourself to be psychologically destroyed.

Your choice (or is it?).







 

Blossom

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I believe we do. I don't know if Ray has said anything on the subject though. I'd think if he has said anything on the topic his book Mind and Tissue might be a good place to look. Some people try to empower others while some are inclined toward destroying us and perpetuating learned helplessness. You ultimately get to choose who you believe and that seems to point towards free will.
 

Sunny Jack

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Mae-Wan Ho wrote a defence of free will in 1996 from the bioenergetic perspective (viewable online). Since Ray also subscribes to bioenergetics and is known to be a fan of Ho, it is likely that he agrees with her view.
 

DaveFoster

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We certainly have the capability to question ourselves. Does an animal have "free" will, or just will? We're the same, except the "free" portion of our will introduces reflection and doubt.
 

Amazoniac

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Just watch some Jordan Peterson to balance it out.........or just allow yourself to be psychologically destroyed.
You just put a ☠ sign on one of the ways. Probably on the right side, so going left is right?
We certainly have the capability to question ourselves. Does an animal have "free" will, or just will? We're the same, except the "free" portion of our will introduces reflection and doubt.
#louvre
Yeah, and animals also experience conditioning and imposition.
 
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opethfeldt

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We are all free. The only thing that differs between us is the perception of that freedom. I think one of the goals of good health is the fostering of the belief that your life is in your control.
 
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ilikecats

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@theLaw ill check out the JP stuff on this sometime I’ve been critical of him but I know he can make some good points. I remember him talking about this once and he mentioned how we can’t chose the hand we’re drawn but we can choose what cards we are going to play. But I think Sam would say (and this is what I started thinking about yesterday) is that we are destined to play certain cards based on are biology/neuroscience/ past experiences so the choice is really an illusion. I guess this might seem obvious but if you really think about that deeply and extrapolate that to different situations it becomes a little disturbing especially if we can find a way to catalog and analyze those things and predict people’s behavior down to 100 percent accuracy. I’m trying to get off this train of thought because getting on it took me to a dark place yesterday. I actually didn’t know this idea of a complete lack of free will was so widespread in Philosophy and mainstream science. Honestly I always felt like I believed less in free will then most people I know since learning about how our physiology effects are behavior. But I always felt that we still had some wiggle room some choice and that regardless how small it is (and I never thought it was really that small) it has a profound effect on the course of our life. I don’t spend much time listening to modern professional philosophers (talkers) because they seem hacky and prone to over analysis and delusions stemming from that.
 
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ilikecats

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I’m having a hard time expressing the sort of train of thought I was on yesterday or explaining why it felt so terrible and scary. probably because I don’t want to think about it.
 
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ilikecats

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I listened to Daniel Dennetts rebuttal and it wasn’t satisfactory.
 

theLaw

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@ilikecats

Since neither of them have a firm grasp on human biology (i.e. touting mainstream nutritional science), it's hard to figure out who is less wrong between the two.

In their exchanges, it appears that they are in more of a semantic argument than a philosophical one.

Personally, I've found that those who believe in some type of "predestination" do so strategically to avoid the potential-ugliness of the alternative.
 

vulture

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I was shocked when I fully understood this:


But, after a few years, I'm considering: maybe because in the low level we have no free will doesn't mean that you have to live like you have no free will...I mean, what are you gonna do about it? you just keep "making decisions", it's like a computer: you may say that 3D images doesn't exists but electrical pulses and blablabla, or 2D images tricked to look like a 3D on a 2D surface (monitor) but most of the people live and will keep living in the 3D sensation...is part of life, you may know it's a game, but that doesn't mean that you wont play because it doesn't fulfill your hopes, ideals and demands.
 
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The question "free will, does it exist?" implies first: a general understanding of the concept, freedom of choice, followed by is that a real thing for me? So, can I believe it has true value as a valid concept in accordance to my believe-system.
It's nature is now a psychological one, depending on the subjective meaning of it for you. Therefore it will exist for you when you believe it does, contrary it does not, when you don't believe in it.
You could argue that, yes I am in control of my choices, or no my choices are mostly coming from the computer in my brain or from my emotional state.
It is a matter of perspective.
Like -karma, some people believe things you do come back to you, others do not see it's so.
The real question then becomes, how do I improve on my ability to make choices?
 
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ilikecats

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This is interesting. When someone like Sam Harris says we don’t have free will what do they think would be an example of true free will? It sounds like it would be making moves and decisions that are arbitrary or random. The idea is that we are so influenced by all these different predetermined factors that our choices are already determined. Ultimately this is little more then an intellectual exercise but Sam Harris and the like have turned it into something akin to A religious movement.
 
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This is interesting. When someone like Sam Harris says we don’t have free will what do they think would be an example of true free will? It sounds like it would be making moves and decisions that are arbitrary or random. The idea is that we are so influenced by all these different predetermined factors that our choices are already determined. Ultimately this is little more then an intellectual exercise but Sam Harris and the like have turned it into something akin to A religious movement.

What true free will is or not, is irrelevant. What matter is if you are able to change your paradigm.
Any example of true free will is only an attempt to continue the useless discussion, either because they are either ignorant or know that it is an easy exploitable subject on which you can keep arguing about to reach some point of personal satisfaction.
 
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charlie

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Yes most people have free will. Only a very small number do not have free will due to them having certain work that must be done. However, those people already won the Golden Ticket due to their prior actions in another age so their free will choices have already been made.
 

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