Doing God's will.

[Horta]

On 4/24/2019 at 12:36 PM, Liquid Gardens said:

I think this is where we disagree, I'm entirely at the opposite end, I think it's impossible.  I cannot conceive of an experiment design involving someone making a decision where we could all differentiate the result, I don't think there is any, 'if they had free will, this is what we would expect'. 

In one way I agree, yet I think the (possibly inescapable) feeling that we do have free will underlies this thinking. If the will wasn't causally dictated by biological processes, then it should be independent of it. Yet we know this isn't so. I still think this should be demonstrable if it were so.

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Definitely doubtful about the free will part, pretty positive about possessing a consciousness though; sure seems to be something aware of the decisions I'm not actually making. 

We definitely have something going on there. Though I see it as a "process" more than a "thing" that exists in and of itself. I think it's largely illusory anyway, the free will thing being just one part of the illusion. The idea that we have "a" consciousness that has free will, seems no different to the claim of having a soul IMO.

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Ha, could be.  I'm not sure that mental disorders are a problem for free will, maybe some would be, although since those must have physical causes I'm not sure it's much different than expecting to stop our heartbeat by will alone which we usually don't require under 'free will'. 

They certainly are a "free will" problem for the people that have them. The only difference is that we realise the voices in our head originate internally, and they are usually much nicer. Yet just like the schizophrenic, we don't put them there, they appear on their own. 

In another way, we also seem to have something similar with tourettes sufferers going on. Generally none of us really knows which word is going to come out next, or how we'll reach the end of any particular sentence. It just happens with little or usually no conscious input at all from us. All on it's own just like magic.

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What's cool is that even if we don't have free will, we're endowed with the absolute top-notch free will simulation software available so doesn't matter much.  So what if it's just an ever-evolving algorithm in my unconscious that's pulling the strings, that would only be a problem if I mistakenly didn't consider my unconscious as much a part of 'me' and who I am as the conscious.

I now believe those that say they are able to live without the illusion. At least, I'm beginning to understand what they mean, and see it as very possible.

[Horta]

41 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

The only thing I know about the future is that I have to create my own. Regardless of the uncertainties.

'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

To quote John Lennon.

[XenoFish]

6 minutes ago, Horta said:

'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

To quote John Lennon.

Following plans opens other doors to you, ones you might never have seen. 

-Xenofish- 

lol

[Will Due]

42 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Following plans opens other doors to you, ones you might never have seen. 

-Xenofish- 

lol

 

Who's plans?

 

 

[Horta]

On 4/24/2019 at 11:32 AM, XenoFish said:

All I'm trying to say is the perhaps there is some type of middle ground we're not seeing. 

That's compatabalism.

Plenty of proponents of that position. I agree that we do have what compatablists call free will, I just don't see any reason to call it that.

[Horta]

6 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

Who's plans?

 

 

The plans of the causally determined brain that each of us possesses.

[XenoFish]

1 minute ago, Horta said:

That's compatabalism.

Plenty of proponents of that position. I agree that we do have what compatablists call free will, I just don't see any reason to call it that.

I guess we agree on something?!?

[Horta]

7 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

I guess we agree on something?!?

If you're saying that humans have the capacity to consider information, foresee possible outcomes and accordingly make decisions they can be held accountable for, yes I agree with that.

This would generally be enough for compatabalist "free will".

Though I personally don't think that's what is generally thought of as free will. Compatabalists usually accept that all of this is causally determined and that people could "not have chosen differently" but don't care. Seems like getting to a certain point, then sticking the head in the sand IMO.

If that's enough, that's fine.

 

[XenoFish]

8 minutes ago, Horta said:

If you're saying that humans have the capacity to consider information, foresee possible outcomes and accordingly make decisions they can be held accountable for, yes I agree with that.

Exactly. I guess that's what I was so stumblingly trying to convey in all the wrong words.

[Will Due]

31 minutes ago, Horta said:

The plans of the causally determined brain that each of us possesses.

 

Alright but what or who planned that?

 

 

[Will Due]

 

There's always a middle ground. Perhaps it's the best place to be.

 

 

[Horta]

7 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

Alright but what or who planned that?

 

 

Experientially, you have me stumped there Will. I can only assume that it all percolates up from the more subliminal processes of the brain, until it reaches the conscious mind level.

ps. Sorry, think I misunderstood your question. As to who planned the brain, no one, it's the result of evolution. As to who planned evolution (if anyone did), no idea.

Edited April 25, 2019 by Horta

[Will Due]

2 minutes ago, Horta said:

Experientially, you have me stumped there Will. I can only assume that it all percolates up from the more subliminal processes of the brain, until it reaches the conscious mind level.

 

I'm with you Horta. Although I have a great need to deny it, a lot of the time, I'm completely stumped too.

But I'm gonna keep on keepin' on anyway. 

 

 

[+Pettytalk]

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

The y obviously are. Name one physical factor which constrains our abilty to make a free willed choice. (and remember that some things are not amenable to choice free willed or other, so stick to a scenario where you HAVE a choice and explain how it is physically constrained )  

I've been considering it for over 60 years, and never found one case yet where anything can  physically prevent me from thinking something, or attempting to act on that thought.   

 

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

No; with intelligence it is more complex. Self aware consciousness doesn't operate by  causal determinism at all.  It is more a chaos effect. For example you can imagine and act out in your mind many future possibilities   Thus, at any moment, dozens of choices are genuinely open to a human being.

Due to the linear nature of time we have to select any one of those, which becomes solidified in our past section of the time line,  BUT which we choose is not capable of being determined by causal determinism  it is actually  disconnected from the past  and may be caused by the future.

But dear sir, you are not considering that which you are not capable of thinking. In other words, the unthinkable, in your case. Your physical brain's ability to think on any thought you are not capable of thinking. That would be one case of a physical restrain to prevent thinking of that unthinkable though. For instance, a thought that would be thinkable to a genius, but not to you, or me, as I'm no genius either. But don't worry, what is 60 years compared to eternity? You'll have eternity without a physical body to think of something which would have prevented you from acting on that one thought that evaded you, physically. Anyway, the only way to act on a thought is to get that thought out of your head, otherwise it remains a thought, physically speaking.

[+Desertrat56]

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Wrong, but anyway i agree.  Those machines will help us process info faster, and so things like cracking the human genome can be done in a few months rather than decades So we will be able to break down the human body to its basic pattern and thus transmit ourselves  across space using computers to transmit the data pattern of our bodies and minds  Cracking the nature of thought and memory will allow us to first store, and  then  make multiple copies of, our minds and thoughts, so we may live for centuries    

You believe in machines doing what you think we can't do for ourselves and so you tell everyone who believes or knows something you can't understand to be WRONG.  You are more arrogant than I am.

[+Pettytalk]

It seems that we need to take into account that if there is no God, to who's will are we to assign all that we consider as not free will? Or for that matter, free will too. Obviously it has to be Nature. Therefore we need to consider just what entails Nature's will. It follows that we have to consider the evolution theory. I say theory for the benefit of those that don't buy into Darwin's theory. To those that don't buy into there being a God, obviously evolution is taken pretty much as fact and true.

Now this will bring up an interesting idea. How are we going to account for all those ailments in our society that are attributed to individuals, groups, sects, and even entire nations? What I'm referring to is religious fanaticism, past, present, and no doubt, still to come in the future. Such that have caused countless atrocities causing millions of deaths and immeasurable suffering, and all in the name of God and his will. Logically, if there is no God, Nature has to take the blame. We say that all animal life acts instinctively. And to act on instincts is all too natural. And for those that take exception, claiming that man is the only one that does not act instinctively, exclusively, as the exceptions to acting instinctively can be attributed to free-will, as some claim, what are we to say to them? After all, is not man part of nature? Therefore all actions, whether viewed as free or not free willed, are all natural, and all Nature's will, if indeed there is no God, a God with a will of his own, willing for us to do what he wills.

In other words, there is no blaming a God that does not exist, as we only have ourselves to blame for anything we consider worthy to blame. Mother Nature gets all the credit, and all the blame. Man's existence is now what nature has made of us, collectively.. But personally, I still prefer a God to blame, because I never have come to terms with accepting that this physical universe has always existed in one form, or another, and without a beginning if always existing, obviously. Even the Big bang theory states that there was something there when it went Bang, even if it was something to the extent of the size a spring green pea, or smaller.

[+Pettytalk]

1 hour ago, Desertrat56 said:

You believe in machines doing what you think we can't do for ourselves and so you tell everyone who believes or knows something you can't understand to be WRONG.  You are more arrogant than I am.

That is what I like, someone that will admit their arrogance of their own free will, or their ignorance, as in my case. Only God knows, and we are all ignorant. Only that some are more arrogant of their ignorance.

Desert, that's a good example of free will. Because evolution would say for you to lie, even if you were arrogant, since those that admit their faults don't last long around here. Only the strongest go on in evolution, to eventually make machines as arrogant and ignorant as themselves.

God made man in his own image. An image is never as good as the original. Now man is making machines in his own image. Again, the machines will never be as good as us. Then, the machines one day will make images of themselves, and so and so on. With each copying the image gets more distorted and less original. Yes, it's evolution alright, only it's in the wrong direction, because it's going from better to worse. To create these unholy man-made machine in our image is debasing our very existence and identity in this world, as man has now this unrighteous power of giving free will to machines at its disposal, Artificial Intelligence. And this very thing was prophesied long ago, in a round about way. The Circles of Atlantis.

Excerpt from Plato's Critias........Socrates and Plato were just two of the many heralds from God, and doing God's will

For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them,
they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose
seed they were; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting
gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse
with one another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their
present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other
property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated
by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober,
and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with
one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and
friendship with them. By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a
divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among
them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too
often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the
upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly,
and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing
the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true
happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were
full of avarice and unrighteous power...... 

Doing God's will, to me, is finding Plato's true Atlantis. 

 

[Will Due]

40 minutes ago, Pettytalk said:

 

Doing God's will, to me, is finding Plato's true Atlantis. 

 

 

It's in here.

 

[+Desertrat56]

@Pettytalk So your future machines will call us "God".   Maybe your "God" is not as simple as you describe.  Maybe we were created by a group of beings wanting to do something they did not have the ability to do, maybe there isn't just one god, maybe all the myths about many gods is correct.  We don't know, we each have to choose what we believe and fit it into our picture of reality.  I also consider the possibility of gods that are not really gods enslaving people as described in the Star Gate movie and television show.  We are very immature as a species and our perceptions keep us from understanding much.  Any leap of faith is really about accepting someone else's story as true and acting as if it is true.  There is no proof for or against there being one ultimate supreme being that created humans on planet earth.

[Jodie.Lynne]

7 hours ago, Horta said:

To put it very briefly, we are an expression of our genes interacting with our environment. Every thought or action is synonymous with changes in the nervous system and or neurochemistry. Without this there ain't no learning. It underlies the lot of it.

I apologize, but this doesn't seem to make sense to me. Unless you are confusing neural system with nervous system?

 

[Jodie.Lynne]

7 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Even though in our past it seems like we only had one choice,

WRONG-O!

Unless you are mis-speaking by using the word 'choice'.

The very word itself conveys the idea of 'more than one option'. As in a person could choose to: go into the military, go to college, enter the priesthood/sisterhood of their religion, go to work in the private sector, get married, or a combination of those choices, upon leaving high school (not sure what the Brits & Aussies call it).

But, once a choice is made, it is done. We have no way of knowing, or seeing, how the other choices would have worked out.  We can imagine, and daydream, about what life would have been like for us, "if only I...", but it is a futile exercise.

And, if we could travel back in time, and if we could alter events, what does that prove? Suppose (and this is real sci-fi/fantasy here) Walker could travel back in his own timeline (I really wouldn't be surprised if he said he could...  ), and convinced himself NOT to marry Mrs. Walker.  His ( and her) life would be different, and how would Walker react to these changes, upon returning to the present?  Would he even still exist in this new reality?

 

 

 

[Stubbly_Dooright]

@Will Due

A thought just occurred to me, and I wonder what would be your response to it. Will, if no one responded, not even viewed it, what would you have done? If not one poster bothered to go into this thread, and not even know what's it's about, because there were no views. Would you be fine with that, Will? 

 

 

[Will Due]

3 minutes ago, Stubbly_Dooright said:

@Will Due

A thought just occurred to me, and I wonder what would be your response to it. Will, if no one responded, not even viewed it, what would you have done? If not one poster bothered to go into this thread, and not even know what's it's about, because there were no views. Would you be fine with that, Will? 

 

Of course. 

Because it would've been God's will. 

 

 

[Stubbly_Dooright]

Just now, Will Due said:

7 minutes ago, Stubbly_Dooright said:

@Will Due

A thought just occurred to me, and I wonder what would be your response to it. Will, if no one responded, not even viewed it, what would you have done? If not one poster bothered to go into this thread, and not even know what's it's about, because there were no views. Would you be fine with that, Will? 

 

Of course. 

Because it would've been God's will. 

 

That it's God's will, that no one responded to your thread, or that it's God's will to be fine with it? 

And either way it your answer turns out, how would you know? (And by answering that, by giving actual reasons and circumstances that would tell you.) 

[Will Due]

14 minutes ago, Stubbly_Dooright said:

That it's God's will, that no one responded to your thread, or that it's God's will to be fine with it? 

 

Both. It's not my universe. 

 

14 minutes ago, Stubbly_Dooright said:

And either way it your answer turns out, how would you know? (And by answering that, by giving actual reasons and circumstances that would tell you.) 

 

I don't know anything. 

 

Spoiler

But I know you do.