Post A7r7d2F77pVMPXLDIe by octesian@refactorcamp.org
(DIR) More posts by octesian@refactorcamp.org
(DIR) Post #A7qoFlyHYeW69kf7vU by urusan@fosstodon.org
2021-06-01T13:54:32Z
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Does free will exist?
(DIR) Post #A7qoFmPDwU4FVJGdv6 by person@fosstodon.org
2021-06-01T14:30:17Z
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@urusan I don't think it's a question of yes or no. It depends on how much control you have over your mind and how much your primitive mind plays a role in your actions. Most of the mind is automated like many other human parts, but you do have some amount of control over it. It's very limited, but not non-existent.
(DIR) Post #A7qoFmlua8DQdfslHc by friend@linuxrocks.online
2021-06-01T16:11:46Z
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@personMost people that say free will doesn't exist, don't mean with that, that everything is instinctive behaviour.Rather they mean that there is a clear determinism to how your brain thinks, so its output is entirely determined by its input, in some fashion.But yeah, that's also why I think that it doesn't matter. The number of inputs is so big that you end up with pseudo-random output anyways.@urusan
(DIR) Post #A7qslS7jHnCLgQRW2y by manuelcaeiro@mastodon.social
2021-06-01T15:14:11Z
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@urusan Absolutely!
(DIR) Post #A7qxfLNRxJlWnDhbpw by Azure@tailswish.industries
2021-06-01T20:41:01.379488Z
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@urusan If you mean 'Libertarian' free will specifically I'd say 'no and I'm pretty sure no world could exist where the concept makes any sense'If you mean 'compatibilism' then I'd say 'mu' because compatibilism seems in practice concerned with defending notions of guilt and culpability that I don't have any use for.If you say 'Black box with lots of internal state and state about its state that things bounce around in that can't easily be predicted' then that's probably the closest thing to free will I can think of that's 'a thing', which is probably vaguely useful as a rough category of systems in the world that we want to talk about.
(DIR) Post #A7r1by2cf44VMjbda4 by wizzwizz4@fosstodon.org
2021-06-01T14:01:07Z
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@urusan A lot of people come up with a lot of very technical arguments demonstrating how free will is an illusion or fake in some way, but they always end up defining “free will” as something like “the power that the author of a story has over the characters”.“The ability to control everything about yourself, including the circumstances of your birth” is *sufficient* to have free will, but it isn't *necessary*. “Free will” means something; don't define it as something nobody could ever have.
(DIR) Post #A7r2DcCwHp96ecNphY by wizzwizz4@fosstodon.org
2021-06-01T14:06:25Z
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@urusan Sure, you didn't choose to exist in the first place, but you've chosen a lot of stuff since then. Hypothetically, an omniscient entity *could've* manipulated what actions would be taken by choosing which people to create, but that's not the same as controlling the actions of the people.If I know you're going to choose chocolate ice cream, that doesn't mean you're not choosing, or that I subsumed your free will. It just means I know you like chocolate ice cream.
(DIR) Post #A7r2DciqNCfOFZJJQm by urusan@fosstodon.org
2021-06-01T14:07:00Z
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@wizzwizz4 How do you define free will?
(DIR) Post #A7r2gDrfs8DRYO4tqi by spirit56@fosstodon.org
2021-06-01T21:37:10Z
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@urusan Yes, it exists on a grayscale.
(DIR) Post #A7r2kwWBnG7pCbHNXU by wizzwizz4@fosstodon.org
2021-06-01T14:10:55Z
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@urusan I look through the concepts in my head for the one that seems like free will, and go “that one”. 😛It's hard for me to explain. But the thing I call “free will” doesn't conflict with physical determinism (which is another weird thing philosophers keep talking about – why would an interesting feature of the underlying laws of physics affect whether I can make decisions?).
(DIR) Post #A7r3njvFBHzuxYtbn6 by AstralPegasus98@fosstodon.org
2021-06-01T21:49:43Z
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@urusan I like Hitchens' take on it:"Yes I have free will; I have no choice but to have it."
(DIR) Post #A7r7d2F77pVMPXLDIe by octesian@refactorcamp.org
2021-06-01T22:32:37Z
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@urusan I’m still undecided on the topic of free will, but I’ve done Sam Harris’ exercises and I’ve seen how little free will I have. (Though he hasn’t convinced me that there’s none.) At best we’re picking off a menu that we have no control over (from our subconscious) and there’s angel and a devil on our shoulders (or emotions) telling us what to pick. We can’t chose the next thought that we are to think. They just appear in our consciousness from elsewhere.
(DIR) Post #A7rWKlCYFABVCRWcWu by futureisfoss@fosstodon.org
2021-06-02T03:09:26Z
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@urusanThis article explains it very well - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sapient-nature/201205/free-will-is-illusion-so-whatAlthough I agree with @wizzwizz4 that definition is important here, not just of "free will" but what do we mean by "you" here ?By "you", are we talking about the mind, body, or something beyond these - like soul.The way I see it, my body is like a hardware and my mind is like the software running on it - that includes me. So by definition, I am virtual and so are things like free will, emotions etc. that are on my mind.