Free will or lack of.......

[Mesterh]

So did the beano get it right all those years ago with the numskulls?

 

I have read a bit about the free will argument. The most important thing I can see is that through experiments it looks like convincing people we have no free will can have a very negative output. Ie people care less about there actions towards others and about life in general. Plus I don't think we can or should condition ourselves to accept that people have no control over their actions and therefore cannot be held responsible. 

 

I think there would be a break down of society long before we could change things for the better. Apparently there have already been court cases were defendants are saying that because they have no free will they shouldn't be punished for their crimes. Imagine if that was allowed to happen?

 

 

[the village idiot]

34 minutes ago, Mesterh said:

So did the beano get it right all those years ago with the numskulls?

 

I have read a bit about the free will argument. The most important thing I can see is that through experiments it looks like convincing people we have no free will can have a very negative output. Ie people care less about there actions towards others and about life in general. Plus I don't think we can or should condition ourselves to accept that people have no control over their actions and therefore cannot be held responsible. 

 

I think there would be a break down of society long before we could change things for the better. Apparently there have already been court cases were defendants are saying that because they have no free will they shouldn't be punished for their crimes. Imagine if that was allowed to happen?

 

 

The numskulls is quite a nice analogy but not accurate as you then have to ask who is directing the numskulls?

 

I understand your concerns about the possible break down of society but I don't think this will happen if we truly understand the situation and are clever about it. I don't believe that anyone 'chooses' to commit a crime. They are led to commiting a crime by a continuum of factors beyond their control. We can stop some of the criminal events from taking place by broadly publicising the necessary reaction (removing said criminal individual from society). This threat and action serves a valuable purpose and should stay in place.

 

Nothing really changes in practice when you reject free will. It just becomes impossible to hate the criminal, and whilst we should still lock people up to protect society we should do everything we can to find ways to stop the behaviour occuring again, and stop it occuring in the first place in the population at large.

 

Our desire to punish is purely based around our misconception that people have free will, and could have chosen to do other than what they did.

 

Ultimately we need to cure criminal behaviour, not punish it because it's bad. Until then we need to continue to lock unlucky people up.

Edited January 3, 2018 by the village idiot

[the village idiot]

[onetruth]

27 minutes ago, the village idiot said:

I agree that 'the present' as you are refering to it is kind of it's own space, and it is right to distinguish it in principle to all the time and events that lead up to it. But the present is not a space open to manipulation in any causal way in it's own time. Any capacity to resist our immediate mental desires is predicated on past exposures. This applies whether you believe choice can occur in the present moment or not.

 

We can observe the consequences in the present moment and this can radically alter the next, but as I see it, at a fundamental level there is no escaping the cause and effect cycle.

Again, I think I agree with the observation you make, but not the conclusion drawn.  If we imagine reality as a sequence of states, the cause and effect cycle seems inescapable: the past determined the present, which will now determine the future.  This is how minds (usually?) perceive the passage of time, and for most practical purposes provides a causal model that there is simply no need to doubt.  At the fundamental level, however, (and we may be using the term slightly differently, but nevertheless...) there is no universal clock counting away the passing of time.  Time, fundamentally, is a dimension, not a position.  Looked at in this way (and I think this is the way we should be looking at it, especially with regards to free will, or any theory of mind for that matter), causality is simply a way of us explaining the projection of reality that mind endures.  But if, as I content, the present is the only moment we can actually have any experience of, we can not be causally determined (at least, not in a temporal sense).

 

I realise I am waffling, sorry.  Consider this: there is no rate at which time passes, that is a nonsense.  I suppose you could say that "one second of time passes each second", but that's meaningless.  Two spacial objects "experience" (< desperately want a better verb here!) time relatively (and differently), but mind is eternally in the present.   It is not a sequence of presents, except in our mental modelling.

 

I don't really believe in free-will or determinism - it just seems meaningless to me.  We are totally free when we think we are, and totally bound when we think we are.  I accept that this is bollocks.  

[onetruth]

59 minutes ago, Mesterh said:

So did the beano get it right all those years ago with the numskulls?

 

I have read a bit about the free will argument. The most important thing I can see is that through experiments it looks like convincing people we have no free will can have a very negative output. Ie people care less about there actions towards others and about life in general. Plus I don't think we can or should condition ourselves to accept that people have no control over their actions and therefore cannot be held responsible. 

 

I think there would be a break down of society long before we could change things for the better. Apparently there have already been court cases were defendants are saying that because they have no free will they shouldn't be punished for their crimes. Imagine if that was allowed to happen?

Yes, there have been a few cases where people have tried the "my genes made me do it" defence.  It might be true, but it doesn't mean society should take no action.  On the other hand, consideration should be given to children, animals, mentally limited people, inanimate objects etc. when judging their behaviour.  The solution is to punish crimes in order to best prevent future crimes, rather than to make the wicked suffer.  I think, in the main, humanity does a reasonably good job of dealing with criminality.

[the village idiot]

3 minutes ago, onetruth said:

Yes, there have been a few cases where people have tried the "my genes made me do it" defence.  It might be true, but it doesn't mean society should take no action.  On the other hand, consideration should be given to children, animals, mentally limited people, inanimate objects etc. when judging their behaviour.  The solution is to punish crimes in order to best prevent future crimes, rather than to make the wicked suffer.  I think, in the main, humanity does a reasonably good job of dealing with criminality.

 

Would you agree with the proposition that everyone is mentally limited?

 

It feels so good to be asking questions rather than trying to answer them!

[the village idiot]

1 hour ago, onetruth said:

Again, I think I agree with the observation you make, but not the conclusion drawn.  If we imagine reality as a sequence of states, the cause and effect cycle seems inescapable: the past determined the present, which will now determine the future.  This is how minds (usually?) perceive the passage of time, and for most practical purposes provides a causal model that there is simply no need to doubt.  At the fundamental level, however, (and we may be using the term slightly differently, but nevertheless...) there is no universal clock counting away the passing of time.  Time, fundamentally, is a dimension, not a position.  Looked at in this way (and I think this is the way we should be looking at it, especially with regards to free will, or any theory of mind for that matter), causality is simply a way of us explaining the projection of reality that mind endures.  But if, as I content, the present is the only moment we can actually have any experience of, we can not be causally determined (at least, not in a temporal sense).

 

I realise I am waffling, sorry.  Consider this: there is no rate at which time passes, that is a nonsense.  I suppose you could say that "one second of time passes each second", but that's meaningless.  Two spacial objects "experience" (< desperately want a better verb here!) time relatively (and differently), but mind is eternally in the present.   It is not a sequence of presents, except in our mental modelling.

 

I don't really believe in free-will or determinism - it just seems meaningless to me.  We are totally free when we think we are, and totally bound when we think we are.  I accept that this is bollocks.  

I think I may well be mouthing off from a position a couple of rungs down the 'philosophical truth' ladder than you?

 

My feeling is that it might be the last level from where there is any leverage for any form of effective positive guidance to appreciate logically how things are in the 'reality' 99.99% of us inhabit.

God that sounds pretentious, but hopefully you get what I'm trying to say.

 

Do you agree with this description, and if so, do you consider my efforts a futile exercise? If (as you suggest) ultimately nothing is in fact truly and persistently real, should we be making efforts to understand our own manifestations of reality?

 

 

Please be as brutal as you see fit. This is all great stuff!

 

I'd also be really interested to hear how you came to hold the views that you do.

Edited January 3, 2018 by the village idiot

[Stubby]

5 hours ago, skyhuck said:

How can "he" accept it, he does not exist, he is just a construct of the brain. So is it the brain that will be annoyed.

 

Or have I got it wrong?

You cant get it wrong Dave . Your not really there

[Vespasian]

1 hour ago, the village idiot said:

haha  I like it..

 

Speaking of the Numskulls, I spent an hr n half last night watching a lecture by Susan Greenfield, a prominent  writer on the psychology of the brain..  one of her slides was a pic of the Numbsculls... got me thinking of my youth for a minute..

 

Isn't it odd that I was taken with that slide and subliminally changed that to Monkey's in an earlier post, and you brought the cycle back on itself by bringing us back to the Numbsculls..

 

Is there something going on? or was that chance?....

 

 

[the village idiot]

2 minutes ago, Vespasian said:

haha  I like it..

 

Speaking of the Numskulls, I spent an hr n half last night watching a lecture by Susan Greenfield, a prominent  writer on the psychology of the brain..  one of her slides was a pic of the Numbsculls... got me thinking of my youth for a minute..

 

Isn't it odd that I was taken with that slide and subliminally changed that to Monkey's in an earlier post, and you brought the cycle back on itself by bringing us back to the Numbsculls..

 

Is there something going on? or was that chance?....

 

 

If you are of a certain age and thinking about a brain automatically controlling a body, it would probably be a bit weird if you didn't think about the numskulls. They have certainly popped up in my deliberations but I don't find it at all spooky that it has occured to other people aswell.

 

Probability is all thats 'going on' here.