Trant said...


I don't think so (but I'm not 100%)

i.e. you claim that if someone is hit by a meteor, that result was decided 14 billion years ago. I'm saying it's not because there are too many random events in between.

I thought 'Free Will' was to do with conscious, but then philosophy is not my thing.

Physical Determinism suggests that we are influenced by our environment (the meteorite), genes and the chemical reactions in our head..

And this is a good definition for free will I believe, from the Biologist Jerry Coyne..

Free Will - A person makes a decision. Now rewind the tape leading up to the moment of that decision. Everything remains exactly the same as before: the history of the universe, the person's entire life, experiences, and body, and so on. If on the rewind the person makes a decision different from the one before, then that person had free will.

I say if everything remains the same, the same decision is made. Ergo; No free will.. This can conclude that a Bank Robber was unable to choose not to rob the bank, his childhood, genes, luck, neurons and current environment all made the decision for him.. We still lock him up!!

badinfluence said..
If you want some simple evidence of a higher power working miracles and all things being destined, check out an a.a. meeting sometime...works for me on a daily basis and applies to every aspect of your life, not just drinking

LOL, no thanks.. I can get personal accounts of Higher Powers working miracles at the mental institute..

By the sounds of AA, it's a bunch of people telling stories about how a Higher Power performs miracles and how everybody has a destiny..

1) Personal accounts of miracles are worthless.. There are people in mental institutes who tell personal accounts while drooling in their bed pan..

2) There is no Higher Power intervening with divine benevolence..

3) Destiny (the hidden power believed to control what will happen in the future; fate) is total nonsense...

Tolerance? Ba! Humbug!

badinfluence said...

you're a sad person Barn...I hope you feel better soon

Oh how condescending of you, look a little smily face to make me feel better..

Like I said, please don't knock something you know nothing about!! You admitted it yourself, "AA sounds like..." . You know nothing!!!

I rest my case.

Please don't randomly spruik your aa quasi-cult over the internet..

Had a read of the 12 steps, what a crock of sh!t.. replace the Drop with God..
http://www.aa.org.au/members/twelve-steps.php

barn said...

And this is a good definition for free will I believe, from the Biologist Jerry Coyne..

Free Will - A person makes a decision. Now rewind the tape leading up to the moment of that decision. Everything remains exactly the same as before: the history of the universe, the person's entire life, experiences, and body, and so on. If on the rewind the person makes a decision different from the one before, then that person had free will.

I say if everything remains the same, the same decision is made. Ergo; No free will..

I don't particularly like your definition but even if we both accept it, you'd still be wrong:

If you roll everything back and everything remains exactly the same and you run the tape forward, there's no guarantee of the same result. You can try to ignore the uncertainty principle but it'll still be there introducing randomness despite you. So by your own definition, the person does indeed have free will.

barn said...

Tolerance? Ba! Humbug!

Sigh...

barn said...


Feel free to redefine it!,

Even if I grant you the Uncertainty Principle, where random Quantum Sh!t ultimately decide our answers, is this real Free will?? We might as well set up a Double Slit Diffraction machine to make our decisions if that is Free Will?... I don't think relying on Quantum physics to give us an alternating response is Free Will, more like flipping a fancy coin?.. But anyway, the Uncertainty Principle has no affect on the Macro Chemistry in the brain.. We don't take the decision to rob a Bank so lightly that the final call is left to Quantum Uncertainty (although you could argue that in court)

It was your definition. I said I didn't like it! I was just showing you that free will could exist under your definition.

My definition of free will isn't all that hard - given a situation if I am able to choose to do a thing or not to do it then I have free will.

Your blastomy guy may not have had that choice if his brain was scrambled. Which just means he wasn't "of sound mind" and so not responsible for his actions. A civilised society tries to treat those types of conditions when we find them if that's possible. Otherwise society has to restrain said person for the good of everyone else.

But your bank robber does have that choice. Saying that his decisions were pre-made for him by some "lower level neural activity" is just blame shifting gobbledegook. You have to prove that the "lower level neural activity" is not part of the bank robbers stream of consciousness for that to come even close to sticking. Even if the choice was pre-chosen for him by some unconscious process, the bank robbers conscious stream still should have enough nouse to know that robbing a bank is not the done thing in polite society and overruled the "lower level neural activity".

Haven't I said this before? I think we're starting to go in circles.

The universe provides us with many things. It provides us light, and air, and matter, and energy, and wonder. Every atom of every one of us was born in the heart of a dying star. How's that for wonder? But it does not provide us with meaning. And why would it? Until we came along, a millisecond ago, meaning was not required.
My view: we have to find meaning for ourselves. Even that may be a stretch, it implies meaning is there to be found. Perhaps making meaning for ourselves is closer. So where do we find (make) meaning in this random absurd universe?
The people we love, the things we love, the things we love to do. Some of us are lucky enough to get the chance to change things for the better.
For me, the god thing is a cop out. Like giving up, saying the puzzle is too hard so just let's make a god that's responsible for everything.
No more bothersome thinking needed.
But I don't blame those that choose this path because it does get really hard sometimes. It's a long long time since I was stuck in the dark teatime of the soul but I can remember it like it was yesterday. When waking up to another pointless day just made me want life to stop.
But that was a long time ago.
It is sad beyond bearing when people just can't take it anymore and check out. Because you can't help feeling that if they hung on just a little but longer they'd break through into the sunshine one day.
The universe is wonderful. The universe is terrible. But it has meaning, it has the meaning that we put into it. That's what we are for.