[baudrunner]

There is no doubt that the institutionalization of religious worship incorporated into the daily lives of people has contributed to their ideological approach to life and the interpretations of its teachings have spawned whole new realms of philosophical thought. The very idea of free will is one that originated with religious doctrine, in that God is said to have given man free will but...

"for many are called but few are chosen" Matthew 22:14

... we are thereby subliminally instructed (only because we forget having been taught this) to apply moral values to our lives so that we can be among the chosen. This is the essential precept of life, and as such represents the most basic form of social conditioning.

Do we have free will? Yes. But stay out of jail.

[Mike 5]

Check this out from todays UK newpapers, similar stories in most of them today:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv_and_rad...ticle_continue

So in summary we have a new style of entertainment here in the UK pioneered by master illusionist and hypnotist Derren Brown. He set up a "motivational" seminar for middle managers where he fed them a few of his techniques, plus a load of subliminal suggestions without telling them to rob a security guard near the bank of England at gunpoint. With the streets sealed off and supervised by the British Police, he ran an empirical experiment four times where the subject was prepared to be angry at anyone in a uniform, carrying a realistic toy gun as a "motivational" tool, and with delusional feelings of their own personal power. As each one entered the deserted Sunady street alone, near the Bank of England, a passing car played specific music, the exact colour green was on painted on the security van and a billboard had the subliminal messages, all crafted to induce the specific out of character behaviour of robbing the guard at gunpoint.

I personally trained in many of the techniques Derren Brown uses, they are real.

You can see my own comments on this at www.derrenbrownforum.com

[David Maes]

Originally Posted by AntonioLao When the ancient philosopher Socrates took the poison or the pre-existentialist Nietzsche's self-induced mental collapse, were they all exercising their free will?

No they weren't.
Very good observation! You seem to have the ability to think about things that we don't immediately think about.(would enjoy you to have five more stars ...)


In this perspective, I think free will might be the difference between those with power and those without.

[David Maes]

Mike5, very good perceived! Realistic!

[David Maes]

I don't think we can really doubt that in general we experience free will; I mean that's obvious...

But in a scientific way, it might be an illusion. An illusion is something that exists but is not what it seems to be.
I think the question rather is: 'Do we do what we want, or do we want what we do?'

I'm not a real psychologist but...
What about hypnosis? I believe you first have to use your free will to allow someone to hypnotize you.
But what about subliminal perception? Or suggestion?

What about emotional addiction?

I think about this...

You know there are lots of cells in the human body. These cells have receptors. When somebody for example is addicted to certain chemicals (like drugs or alcohol for example), then the receptors of the cells receive those chemicals.
People can be addicted to those chemicals.

But there is also this gland in our brain producing neurohormones and neuropeptides. The receptors of the cells receive those chemicals.

What I mean is, we are also a bit addicted to our own emotions, lots of times without even knowing it ourselves.

We might have the free will to act against these emotions. But maybe when we act, maybe it's just our unconsciousness that acts, and the consciousness which gives us a reason to do what we do.

?? I don't know.

[David Maes]

[quote=David Maes] which gives us a reason to do what we do.

[/QUOTE](if "we" hadn't already "done" it.)
??

With all respect for human free will. (find this topic very interesting).

[michellemfry]

The original question is even easier. Does free will exist? I believe man has free will, but I also believe in man's ability to do as he pleases. You know, man please thyself. And then let me know how that works out. I'm being serious here.

The arguments happen to be compelling on eiether side. Your's is no disgrace.

[subversion]

Originally Posted by Mike 5 We seem to have struck a golden topic - does this normally happen that people start the debate here? Perhaps we have no choice Antonio - I do not think this can be resolved by any God's eye view. By this I mean that it is one thing to imagine some alien film crew making a documentary of the human race and then wondering about the mechanics and observed behaviour. But from this outside view, you can know NOTHING about the CHOICE or will, is this not obvious? From a God's eye view or alien film crew we surely would all look like so many ants in a nest. So do ants in a nest have free will? Do ants in a nest have choice? It seems to me that the very perspective of academic discussion, outside and remote in some stillness beyond our world, the alien film crew return and edit their story, but there is NO WAY to talk of free will or choice. Do dolphins have a choice or do we train them to perform for us? There is no real meaning from this external camera angle So the dynamic of the question - and free will is a question of dynamics - forces us into the first person. We have to look into our own personal experience, however subjective and unscientific that may seem at first. The only possible place to resolve this question is MY experience in MY life and then to perhaps ask YOUR experience within YOUR life, and so on. But choice can only be known as EXPERIENCE, not as logic viewed by the fool on the hill as it were. What if the ants all took off their masks and said, yeah they were just acting in a play? Surreal thought, but you get my point, there is truly no way to "know" from the outside, it is an inside question only. Now, I cannot say I have ever met anyone who from birth thought there is no such thing as free will. It is an intellectual puzzle that some people solve AGAINST the apparently obvious fact that we all FEEL we have free will. However the same logic ultimately can be applied. To simplify, I will introduce an artifice. For a moment, imagine that all reality occurs 8 seconds before you cognise it. Or 3 months. Clearly if there was such a delay, then whatever you observe already happened. So we have a rough model of how to imagine a world without any free will, just as an approximation. So my question is the following: HOW could we be sure, totally beyond doubt, that this is not actually the case? Is it possible that our mind is what I have called elsewhere on this forum an "I" machine, that simply and MECHANICALLY attributes a flavour that "I" did that, "I" knew that, here "I" am, making my free choice, "now"... In fact, our mind could be subtitles on a flim that just goes by, why not? Yes, the very mechanical way that we are forced to have this sense of "I" and this sense of yes "I" chose that, this is almost suspicious by it's relentlessness. The more closely you observe your own mind, the more automatically it just does what it always has done. The only possible way to prove there is free will is the freely be without it and then compare, and that is simply not available to us. Suspicious, in a way... but I am deliberately using reverse logic perhaps to stimulate fertile arguments, maybe. Can anyone of us will themselves into a clear and sure denial of free will? Well, there are specific tricks and techniques, I know them and enjoy them, but they rarely last. The nearest experience of No Choice is too obvious - dreaming! There is a distinct lack of personal choice, relatively speaking, in your nightmares... Another is extreme sado masochism, or master slave relationships, I have spoken to such people, seen the TV documentaries and I feel I see what that is, but still, it's a choice. Pol Pot was quite another thing, or the Spanish Inquisition, I can see this is truly a complex topic, perhaps the central topic from which all else hinges. ROBERT - and everyone else - THANK YOU For this excellent opportunity to enjoy the sheer bliss of thinking - I am floating in inner space here... I simply don't want to resolve this, it is so juicy just losing myself in the labyrinth. ...to be continued ...

I think it is clear we are dealing with an issue of belief, and therefore the Axiom of Choice may come into play. The problem with free will as an experiment is that you never get to do it over. You never have a chance to say, "oh, well I'm gonna do something this way instead to see if things would be different." In this manner time to a conscious being happens once and once only, so there is absolutely no way to prove that you COULD have made a different choice in any given event of time. We make a choice, which we feel is volitional, but in the end we cannot prove that it really was volitional or not. When all's said and done time only happens once, in one way, and thus the idea of free will vs. fate is unprovable by nature.

So the ideas of free will and of destiny (which is my preferred term for determinism) are purely matters of belief. One can choose to believe whichever one one wants, or he/she can choose to believe both. That's the beauty of it. The Axiom of Choice says either or, or both. SO does the axiom of choice imply free will? Well, since the choice we make doesn't matter, perhaps it implies destiny, i.e. not free will. So what if you look at it that way? What if free will exists but doesn't matter because the choices we make all lead to the same outcome eventually?

[subversion]

Originally Posted by David Maes What about this... You're driving a car using a route you've done already lots of times. You're listening to the radio while it's playing. You're very concentrated on what's being said on the radio. Suddenly you arrive at the place of destination. You don't remember anything about the red lights you stopped for, or the decisions you might have taken, or the many times you had to stop... You were so concentrated on the radio "you" just "weren't there". What's conscious and what's unconscious? Also... what's objective and what's subjective? There seems to be a gap between the subjective and the objective.

here's my strange theory about objectivity vs. subjectivity

Subjectivity is really the only true and absolute objectivity. The reason is because life is designed as the ultimate judge of reality. For example, let's say you lived in a world where everybody suffered. Well, to a degree we do live in this world, I mean, things could theoretically be better right? We think so, but how do we even know any better if it doesn't exist objectively in our world. Because it simply doesn't exist but only in potential as an idea, objectively it is technically bullshit. But it's not bullshit, so in this way our minds override the objects that are currently in place. Subjects override objects because subjects create objects as thoughts.

Let me put it this way, if everybody suffered daily then objectively this would be considered not suffering, because it would be commonplace. Yet humans would still be able to ascribe to some sort of non-objective reality (i.e. subjectivity) and thus be able to say that this is not normal, this is suffering. Only then could we reach beyond and transcend what is our objective circumstances to be able to understand that there could be something better in our "subjective" yet absolute opinions. Therefore subjectivity is the only true absolute and thus is the only way to see the non-objectivity, i.e. non absolution of objectivity. If you ascribe complete absolution to objectivity, you will not see that this itself is subjective. Does this make sense? So in other words all we really want is an absolute standpoint, and since we are subjects the only absolute standpoint we can ever have is subjectivity, and thus in this absolute sense subjectivity is not subjective at all in the classic sense but is really the only true objectivity. So objectivity is just a word for pure absolute subjectivity. I'm not sure if I described myself well, but do you understand?

[subversion]

Pure subjectivity is that supreme intelligence which we seek in order to garner true and pure insight about the natural world. This is what we consider objectivity.