[subversion]

If you are Mr. Nobody then I will be Mr. Everybody!

Your viewpoint as nobody can make you feel very objective indeed, but so can my standpoint as Everybody. In this right absolute subjectivity is indistinguishable from supposed absolute objectivity. Completeness makes the circular contradiction revolve. This message is meant to be cryptic yet obvious.

You and me are very similar Mr. Nobody, but I will hereby name you my antithesis. Our crucial difference is that you are a pessimist and I am an optimist. That is why i am hear to teach you.

Optimists know there is no good reason why the past should be set in stone, while the future is but a whim of mercy and decision. In actuality, everything you could possibly do has already been spelled out in the infinite profusion that is ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. Thus free will is much like time, indistinguishable from an illusion

So what is the illusion and what is reality? Are they synonymous?

In other words, every choice you could possibly make has already been taken care of in an alternate story line. So don't worry, be happy, and enjoy the ride as you make your tenuous decisions. When all is said and done and eternity has it's way of surmising, the whole of time and anything that happened within it will be destiny by default, set in the stone surface of time forever.

Gravity itself represents destiny in it's purest form. Before you disagree with this pinacle statement, I challenge you to offer a better explanation which can be proven. To disprove destiny, you must explain gravity. Try and you will fail, try harder, and you will fail still. When you are finally left with an unscientific, magical, mystical, invisible force, you will realize we are dealing with the very action and purity of fate itself. Gravity is not for us to question. It has no rhyme or reason, and thus that is it's rhyme and reason. Accepting this may be hard for us to do, but difficulty means absolutely nothing in my world, and yours is the same.

Originally Posted by Mr. Somebody

I have had many instances in my life where I could have chosen differently and my life would be totally different. This is MY FREE WILL. Not my destiny, it is my choice and mine alone..........

ahhh yes, but whether you could have made a different choice or not has no bearing on the fact that you DIDN'T make a different choice, so what does that prove? Perhaps you were destined to take on this false persona of Nobody. Perhaps you were destined to read these words right here. You cannot prove otherwise. Try to and you will fail. If you do not read these words, it must not have been your destiny. It's as simple as that my friend.

Originally Posted by Somebody

What was pre-determined?

Everything that happened was, by default, not predetermined per se, but destiny. Destiny is a better word than predetermined because predetermined is only a pessimistic way of viewing destiny!! So just because humans don't know where the asteroid is doesn't mean the asteroid itself doesn't know. Gravity knows where everything is at at all times, theoretically speaking.

Originally Posted by Somebody

nothing is 100%

you are incorrect, nothing is 0%. Again, your pessimistic view is blinding you to the positive truth. You seek a negative truth I can tell. Anyways, how can you determine that the future is undetermined if afterall it will only happen in one way?

But more than anything I want you to answer this question. What choice does a particle have on the event horizon of a black hole? Answer this question correctly, and you will have no choice then to realize that gravity disproves your notion of things without course.

[michellemfry]

So, gravity is proof of existence, and has always been? Gravity itself is ageless and eternal? And infinite? Leaving us existing, aging, and finite? Am I reading too much into this?

[Guille]

Originally Posted by michellemfry

So, gravity is proof of existence, and has always been? Gravity itself is ageless and eternal? And infinite? Leaving us existing, aging, and finite? Am I reading too much into this?

No. Whoever defends that either has no knowledge of physics or i lying. Gravity exists if and only if, and in depende of, mass and dimensions. At the very start dimensions didn't exist so there was no gravity. Gravity is only proof of the existence of mass, of the existence of force, of the existence of spacetime, but not the proof of existence itself. And gravity can onyl be infinie if mass is infinite, and mass is NOT infinite. The only acceptable thing with which I agree is that if there is gravity, there is existence, for matter is the start of the cain of existence: that there is matter impplies that there is force (for ex: gravity) and that there is space, and force impplies that there is energy and space impplies that there is time.

By the way, to all of you that are interested in the theme of Free Will, we will chat about this in today's chat session: http://www.toequest.com/forum/general-philosophy/1248-2005-12-26-quine-chat.html

Subversion,
I agree with what you reply to Mr.Nobody.

[Mr. Nobody]

Subversion:
Thank you for engaging nobody.....
To answer to the intent of your post without going into specifics:
I do not subscribe to the idea of "many worlds" for the quantum. I detect that to be the premise of your view. I subscribe to evolution above all. Evolution does not mean destiny, since evolution is re-action to the changing environment and not pre-determinism. I see free will as part of our evolution. Free will acting within an increasing amount of space, as free will pushes man into outer space. We are the wild card which was planted when the quantum captured energy in unstable form and later when man recognized his death and limited existence. Free will was needed for the evolution of consciousness to become the eyes and ears of thew cosmos, to reach out and look at itself as an entity, life. It may have taken many reincarnations of inflations, big bangs, dying multiverses or it may have happened right away. But I see evolution within anthropy as the answer to why we are here and why we ask these questions.

[Guille]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nobody

BTW, I am not a pessimist, I can be considered nore of a pragmatist and ethical atheist

I'm also an ethical atheist but in the fluid form, not pragmatist. About pessimism do you refer to lif,e or to free will?

[subversion]

the most optimistic viewpoint says that you can have both free will and destiny! Follow your heart and that's what you'll have

yet another indication that truth is first and foremost of heart, only secondly of mind

cheers to the new year

[michellemfry]

We must navigate our lives because we are mobile. We must choose where and when to...anything.

Because we walk upright, our hind quarters do not need to follow our front quarters. We have evolved into an upright species that MUST have free will. We must choose where and when to be. There is no agent that will do the work for us.

[subversion]

I would argue that all lifeforms no matter how basic have free will

[David Maes]

'The other world' is: normally we want what we do (of course we also sometimes want what we don't do, but I don't consider this a part of free will, more like just wanting something. But I believe in some cases people don't want what they do. (Of course we also don't want what we don't do but I consider this free unwillingness).

I think with a phenomenon called 'obsessive compulsory disorder' (or something called like that), they are forced to do things which they don't want to.

In case of 'splitten personality': Who's doing it??

Also these things are not a permit for personal subjectivity in fundamental science.

On the other hand the problem is we don't really know what perception is. So I think there have to happen lots of experiments for this.

I don't want to exclude wholism.

There also seems to be a part of the brain responsible for the 'me'-function.
But even this 'me' could be illusory.

Don't know.

[chazzysaw]

Originally Posted by subversion

in my opinion everyone has a split personality

generally I do not believe in psychological disorders
perhaps I just don't believe in disorder

cheers!

I believe we have several personalities and they are adjustable according to our surroundings and enviorment.There are those that are mentally ill and lack the control of these personalities. But in most cases we can maintain, control and adjust our personalities accordingly.