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

[onetruth]

Just now, the village idiot said:

 Excellent fun fact, and highly appropriate. My name is Graham and my brain certainly feels like a black hole at the moment. Hungry for matter and incredibly dense!

Ah, I edited that out, fearing it may derail the thread.

 

Back on topic (kind of): I was pleased to see a discussion of free will vs. fate in yesterday's episode of Vikings.

[the village idiot]

21 minutes ago, onetruth said:

Ah, I edited that out, fearing it may derail the thread.

 

Back on topic (kind of): I was pleased to see a discussion of free will vs. fate in yesterday's episode of Vikings.

Don't worry about derailing, certainly not on my account, I do it all the time. Fun Facts must always be heard! You can always steer the good ship back on course a few posts later.

 

You were playing with fire though unleashing the 'G' word when not absolutely necessary

 

In fact (inspired by the man himself) I have created a new word for you to use. Instead of using the problematic 'G' word you can say 'Fnotu' (short for Fundamental nature of the universe).

 

Admittedly it sounds like you are referring to a Fijian fullback, but it should keep you out of trouble in the future.

 

No thanks necessary.

Edited January 5, 2018 by the village idiot
idiocy

[Stubby]

He is actually a back row !

[WesD]

5 hours ago, onetruth said:

Ignore that, it's crap.

 

What I was driving at was - although our brains can learn, if there are "bugs" in the system, no matter how much experience is gained, we can't learn the bugs away.  Now I've typed it out, I'm not sure even I believe it!

 

Bed-time, methinks...

Yes they can learn with a bug and potentially not know of or remove bug however what your implying is that every single brain in the human world at least is flawed with the same bug because we can all break thought. 

 

I think this is profound (you’ll both disagree) it isn’t a bug it’s your ability to break thoughts at will (I have said the will word oops) which would mean free will exists in a limited capacity being that I agree outputs are automated. 

 

Before replying devote some time to thinking it over and practice and play at breaking thoughts, change topics in your head. Is that automatic, sure the thoughts are but the stopping chopping and changing topic well your doing that, after a bit follow one thought through then revert back to breaking them up and changing topic again ........ hello Mr Will. 

[Mortimer Firewood]

7 hours ago, onetruth said:

Given the way you've worded that I suppose you mean Freud's definition of ego.  I think (and I'm way out of my comfort zone here!) it was the part of the psyche that made judgments, including moral judgments and judgments about what was real or unreal.  It protects the id, which is (I think) the basest bodily and mental desire-factory part of the psyche (hunger/pleasure&pain/etc.)  As I say, way out of my depth!

 

The word "ego" is used in all sorts of different ways, though.  I think even Freud changed how he used it in his later work.  

Excuse my poor wording I’m afraid written tex is not my strong point.

Im a little rushed this morning but wanted to quickly reply. 

Is the Ego not what negotiates between the conscious & the unconscious. 

As ego is made up of three parts all trying to control the other is this not the chatter we hear in our minds every day. The little Devil and Angel bickering from shoulder to shoulder.  

Ive noticed since starting to break my ego down that that useless chatter has almost gone.

Making mindfulness/meditation much easier. 

Got to go off shooting  must be some blood lust desire from the Ego?

[peatff]

50 minutes ago, Mortimer Firewood said:

Is the Ego not what negotiates between the conscious & the unconscious. 

 

Sigmund Freud had ideas on this, here's an e-book you can read about the ego and the id.

Another about id, ego and super ego

Edited January 5, 2018 by peatff

[Mortimer Firewood]

6 hours ago, peatff said:

 

Sigmund Freud had ideas on this, here's an e-book you can read about the ego and the id.

Another about id, ego and super ego

I get Freud’s concept this is what I was getting at by the constant chatter of the mind between I’d ego and super ego constantly keeping one another in check. 

 

[onetruth]

11 hours ago, WesD said:

I think this is profound (you’ll both disagree) it isn’t a bug it’s your ability to break thoughts at will (I have said the will word oops) which would mean free will exists in a limited capacity being that I agree outputs are automated. 

 

Before replying devote some time to thinking it over and practice and play at breaking thoughts, change topics in your head. Is that automatic, sure the thoughts are but the stopping chopping and changing topic well your doing that, after a bit follow one thought through then revert back to breaking them up and changing topic again ........ hello Mr Will. 

I agree that it seems that way, but that thing you are calling Will could just be the output of a previous state of mind - how can you be sure that you are changing topic because you have some power to make it happen, rather than it happening because (unbeknown to you) it is what your brain chemistry has determined must happen.

 

If we could choose our thoughts, we would never become obsessed with things that we know are painful or unbeneficial to us.  We wouldn't become addicted to things like self-harm, over-eating, gambling, pornography or cannabis.  We wouldn't suffer chronic depression.  We wouldn't become angry dwelling on wrongs that had been committed against us.  We wouldn't bother with grief.  We'd just "snap out of it" and think about something that made us happy instead.  If we really had the power to choose our thoughts, why would we choose to make ourselves miserable?

Edited January 5, 2018 by onetruth
I chose "self-harm, over-eating, gambling, pornography or cannabis" because there arn't physiological draw backs from stopping indulging them, unlike heroin, alcohol etc.

[WesD]

1 hour ago, onetruth said:

I agree that it seems that way, but that thing you are calling Will could just be the output of a previous state of mind - how can you be sure that you are changing topic because you have some power to make it happen, rather than it happening because (unbeknown to you) it is what your brain chemistry has determined must happen.

Will could be the output of a previous state of mind - absolutely mid thought you have internally given yourself another input “right change subject” 

 

Brain chemistry determining it must happen is a an explanation of your mind carrying out the output based on input see above. 

 

Think of a computer idling along, sure in the background things are happening, services are running that we cant see which enables the computer to be on but that computer will be waiting in a constant until something happens .... it receives an input. 

 

The very statement “Will could just be” says the rest of your perceived sentence/thought could be wrong? It could just be that we have Will or free will in the limited capacity that I keep trying to put across, it cant be disproven. 

1 hour ago, onetruth said:

 

If we could choose our thoughts, we would never become obsessed with things that we know are painful or unbeneficial to us.  We wouldn't become addicted to things like self-harm, over-eating, gambling, pornography or cannabis.  We wouldn't suffer chronic depression.  We wouldn't become angry dwelling on wrongs that had been committed against us.  We wouldn't bother with grief.  We'd just "snap out of it" and think about something that made us happy instead.  If we really had the power to choose our thoughts, why would we choose to make ourselves miserable?

What you are describing could be a bug in the system as you earlier alluded too, the fact that those things do not effect everyone in the same way kind of suggests that but with any of them (I’m going to generalise them as a group to be a cop out as I haven’t experienced any of them so cant comment from experience but only offer my thoughts and I’d rather not upset anyone whose going through or gone through any of them) with some training or help with your thoughts can be broken. 

 

The fact that they dont effect everyone and could be seen as a bug would kind of say it would be strange for every single mind on the planet to have a bug to stop ourselves in thought or to change thought. Which would point towards not bug, will. 

 

We dont have limitations of mind we came from a cave we wouldn’t be this advanced if we did. 

 

@the village idiot earlier in the thread said he was depressed and turned to mindful meditation to help and now he views the world differently and isn’t as bad with the depression. Mindful meditation is the vehicle he has chosen to change or try to change his outputs. Mindful meditation is an input, so are anti depressants but they carry their own risks. Point is he chose an input which works to alter output. 

 

All you mentioned will probably have a root cause to kick out that output they feel stuck in but people who have all come out the other side will have changed inputs to get different outputs, if you read why do you choose a topic you could read any book in the world to feed the itch/output of needing to read?

 

I personally feel we have a choice based on outputs that are automatic but we can change outputs with inputs to a degree. We have free will in a limited capacity but it is their. 

[the village idiot]

3 hours ago, WesD said:

 

@the village idiot earlier in the thread said he was depressed and turned to mindful meditation to help and now he views the world differently and isn’t as bad with the depression. Mindful meditation is the vehicle he has chosen to change or try to change his outputs. Mindful meditation is an input, so are anti depressants but they carry their own risks. Point is he chose an input which works to alter output.

Hi Wes,

 

That's not really accurate. The thing that triggered my change in relationship with my depression was the sentence "You are not your thoughts". It was in a book I was just happening to read because I had liked other books on different topics by the same author. The book wasn't about depression.

 

The effect of those words set me off on a fact finding mission encompassing neuroscience, buddhism, psychology etc. I educated myself out of the negative effects of my condition. Mindfulness meditation came in afterwards to see if the science could be backed up through my own direct experience of watching my thoughts.

 

Reading the aforementioned words was a chance event which set in motion other events that ultimately led to my change in relationship to thinking. I didn't choose my 'treatment' it just happened, and I'm bloomin grateful it did.

4 hours ago, WesD said:

 

I personally feel we have a choice based on outputs that are automatic but we can change outputs with inputs to a degree. We have free will in a limited capacity but it is their. 

It is cool that you have settled at a point you are happy with. That's all any of us can do. I have a different interpretation to you, and that is cool too!

My one note of caution would be to restate that you really can't trust your own subjective interpretation of what your mind is doing. It's a little bit like expecting a thief to catch himself in the act and turn himself in.

Purely watching the mind in action can, in time, reveal an awful lot (I'm told). Up until then you have to throw logic and objective evidence at the issue. When you do this(for me anyway) it leaves free will with absolutely no place at the table.