Topic: Free Will from an Atheist's POV. (Read 6065 times)

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #20 on:** September 05, 2005, 04:31:49 PM »

"This concept is just a bit overblown.
Yes, poeple have free will. It is the consequences of their actions that define good and evil."

According to Harry_is_not_the_first_Harry, we don't have free will, its just an illusion. You are both atheists. Which one of the two of you should we believe?

If he's right, there is no sense in bothering about right and wrong and good and evil. There are huge implications in our society if we really believe in a fully deterministic perspective on human decision.

At least he doesn't have to worry about being inconsistent, though. You and Heretic are embracing free will, but neither of you so far has dared to explain how exactly we come to have free will in a universe dictated by the laws of nature.

Heretic · « **Reply #21 on:** September 06, 2005, 05:58:05 PM »

Since there are two "Free-will" threads, I thought I'd dump this in both threads. Since I am an Atheist, it's probably more appropriate here since it's an Atheist's POV.

Where is your free will? I mean, where is it located? Is it part of your brain or does it emanate from somewhere else and somehow control your actions?

If it is in your brain then it must emanate from within it. And the brain is much like a machine is it not? I mean it's composed of cells, neurons and chemical pathways and electrical activity and all that conforms to physical laws. When part of your brain is stimulated in a specific way could it respond any way it wants, or would it respond in one specific way?

So where is 'free-will'? Does it involve the soul?

Soul? Where is the soul located? Is the soul physical in nature? Can this 'soul' which is not physical, influence your brain, which is physical? If so then can a brain influence other physical things or just brains? Can it influence other brains or just yours? If only yours then your soul must know the difference between your brain and everything else that is not your brain and never makes a mistake in that regard. That must mean your soul is bound by structure and rules, like a machine.

So if this soul is the source of free-will then it must be always weighing different alternatives and making decisions.

But that's what my brain does! Why do I need a soul to do what my brain does? Maybe this 'soul' is smarter or more 'moral' than my brain is.
If this soul's actions are not controlled by rules then that means it acts randomly, if it is guided by rules, which in turn guide you, then we have no 'free-will'. We are programmed. Seems to me there is no in-between. Our lives are either random or predetermined. Which is it?

Is a God guiding our souls? If a God is guiding our souls and our souls are guiding our brains, then we are nothing more than puppets. In this case we really do not have 'free-will'.

Maybe this God is guiding our souls in a directional way, but it's up to us to figure out the right steps to take, like an intelligence test. Or is it about morality?

Morality? Oh jeez, now I'm back to where I started. Is our brains involved in making moral decisions or do those decisions eminate from somewhere outside our brains?

I quit.

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #22 on:** September 06, 2005, 06:34:38 PM »

Come now, I insist! You can't trounce on the hard work of Christians trying to sort through this stuff and then just quit when asked to explain it yourself from your own POV!

:)

Heretic · « **Reply #23 on:** September 06, 2005, 06:35:59 PM »

Ok, I'll keep going, but I did just explain it from my POV. I just quit when I got back around to wondering where Morality resides. That's a different subject for a different thread. Have you no comments on the rest of my post?

It is the consequences of their actions that define good and evil.

Define Good and Evil.

no, because negative reinforcement would soon enter the picture as your body revolts at the poor nutrition.

No, because I also eat much nutritious other stuff. Even after stuffing my belly with the good stuff, pudding prevails.

See above.

See above.

Its problematic no matter which way you go.

I disagree. To type or not to type? Type! See? No problem making that 'free-willed' decision.

Its not God that's doing the raping, is it?

Sure it is. If you see a crime being commited and you have the power to stop it and you don't, are you not just as guilty for the commission of that crime as the one perpertrating it? (Did I spell that right? Perpertrate, Purpretrate, Preportrate.......)
By this God allowing it to happen, against the will of the rape-ee, there is a violation of the rape-ee's free-will. Stop eating your cake.

He wants evolution as a fact but he wants to ignore the fact that evolution is incompatible with notions of free will.

Huh? (Insert confused emoticon here) Wha? What are you talking about johnny? Are you obfuscating again? In nature animals chose mates, they chose mates based on traits that will produce the offspring with the best chances of survival. They make choices. Animals and Humans do this. Now it could be argued that animals are doing this purely from instinct, humans too, however humans have shown a tendicy to rise above instinct (or sink below it) and mate with those who do not display such traits. What I'm trying to say here is animals and humans can and do make choices, there is an evolutionary link here. The free-will I do not eschew the fact exists (puddin' or not to puddin') evolved from the basic 'flight or fight' mechanisms. The ability to make choices. JMO

We're trying to talk about YOU guys.

Ok, I can see where I was dragging YOU guys into this also. But is this not where it would all lead to anyway? To talk of 'free-will' beyond the bounds of simplistic choices, (eat puddin' or not) is to invoke Gods and YOU guys. On what level are we discussing 'free-will'? Will the path of this discussion lead to the choice of believing in your God or are we merely argueing if we have the free-will to chose Doritos or Cheetos? Cut to the chase.

You are both atheists. Which one of the two of you should we believe?

Well, I am an Atheist also, and you should believe me. 8)

Zagzagel · « **Reply #24 on:** September 06, 2005, 07:07:54 PM »

lol. :D

cimics · « **Reply #25 on:** September 06, 2005, 10:35:34 PM »

I am perfectly willing to assume nothing more than free will being the ability to choose Doritos vs. Cheetos. So, what say ye?

Ragnar · « **Reply #26 on:** September 07, 2005, 12:44:38 PM »

Doritos are Nacho cheesier. And for variety you can have Cool Ranch. Plus that cat's an idiot, so I choose Doritos.

As for the rest, let me see if I can explain how free will is compatible with evolution. When you get down to basics, free will is the choice of life or death. Happiness, pleasure, procreation, etc. is all an off-shoot of that basic choice. You make the right choice, you live, your genes make it another generation. Make the wrong choice before you have kids, you die, your stupidity is removed from the gene pool and the species is that much stronger.

Yes, you can choose to rape and murder, but then your tribemates will tell you to chill the f-ck out or they'll eat you for dinner. Thus, as part of evolution, humans developed an intellect. Og sees Ugg rape George's girl and George kills Ugg, because George is the biggest. So Og makes a bow and arrow and kills George and takes his girl. Og's the smartest, so his genes survive. Fast forward a ways. Everybody's killing everybody and generally doing what they want, and the population is dwindling. So a group of smart fellows get together and say, "Hey, wait a minute. This isn't working. The whole tribe's gonna die out if we keep this up." And then you get laws, because randomly killing people is not conducive to the species surviving.

And the best part is no gods are necessary for any of this.

cimics · « **Reply #27 on:** September 07, 2005, 12:51:09 PM »

That sounds like an explanation for why morality is a product of evolution. But the issue is free will.

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #28 on:** September 07, 2005, 01:01:39 PM »

That's all very well and fine for things which we can reduce to survival.

Your 'rape' and 'murder' ideas are plausible, but no offense, plausibility does not rise to the level of evidence. The whole problem lies in your phrase:

"Fast forward a ways."

You are taking HOW WE ARE NOW and pretending that BEFORE we had intellect we could rationalize things in that way. Before we had that ability, it seems evident that the 'Alpha Dog' model would have carried the day. Wolves have alpha dogs. Gorillas have 'alpha' dogs. Lions have 'alpha' dogs. This is just wishful thinking on your part, and I don't feel compelled to accept wishful thinking as a substitute for an explanation.

Now, as I said, even within that framework, the solution is only addressed in regards to survival and reproduction. We have choices that have nothing to do with either survival and reproduction and everything to do with pure preferences.

These 'pure preferences' go beyond physical disposition. Some people think a sunset beautiful and choose to watch them. Where is the connection between considering a sunset beautiful and our survival/reproduction traits that the theory says have built us? The theory built us but now it doesn't? Hello, can we say 'ad hoc'?

Some people think riding a bike is more pleasurable than roller blading. While it might be argued that both of these can be reduced to survival by the route of fitness, but the choice between the one or the other doesn't. I'd be interested in seeing the experiment that attempts to document the different evolutionarily physical traits and dispositions of people who do certain types of physical activities. This would be an obvious and straightforward prediction of the theory: all choice should be able to be tied back to survival/reproduction, since that's what drives evolution.

If anyone had any incentive to perform such experiments, it would be the fitness industry. For some reason, this hasn't occurred to them. I propose that it is because it would mean living as though evolution were true, which nobody actually does. And that's one of my challenges to evolution, especially in regards to the free will question, and to a large extent the 'moral choice' issue. If you only take your little 'evolution' theory out of the box when it suits your fancy, but otherwise keep it locked up, it makes me wonder whether or not there is really a big charade going on.

I tell you what, if I were an evolutionist, I would be openly scoffing you right now. For my own part, I'd be having sex with as many women as possible in an attempt to maximize the flow of my genes. That would be living as though evolution were true. I wouldn't be doing any raping, because that's not my bag. I wouldn't need to. But some men, who lack any mad charm skills like me, or are otherwise ugly as sin, would have to resort to raping because otherwise they'd have no chance of furthering their gene pool.

Ragnar · « **Reply #29 on:** September 07, 2005, 01:06:11 PM »

Quote from: cimics

That sounds like an explanation for why morality is a product of evolution. But the issue is free will.

Well, actually, I went beyond the assignment. Not only did I show how free will is compatible with evolution, I also showed how morality is compatible with evolution. If you read my post carefully, I think I made a pretty good case for both.

cimics · « **Reply #30 on:** September 07, 2005, 01:14:24 PM »

I assume you are referencing "making the right choice." But making good choices and freely making choices are not necessarily the same (computer programs can make good choices). So I am not sure how your discussion supports or explains how free will is a product of evolution.

Gagezilla · « **Reply #31 on:** September 07, 2005, 03:58:45 PM »

The argument is actually fairly poor for explaining either as a result of evolution. In addition, as evidenced by the irrational behavior in New Orleans by higher intelligence beings, the purportion that Ogg and George would make a moral decision to halt killing in an alpha male environment is absurd. The escalation of the violence to it's ultimate conclusion is more in line with what anthropologists theorize for pre-modern intelligence capacity. Sorry, but the idea of sudden moral foundation doesn't hold much water for me.

Heretic · « **Reply #32 on:** September 07, 2005, 08:01:28 PM »

Let's not forget 'free-will' is nothing more than a concept. A placard for naming something that doesn't really exist, yet is a concept of the human mind.

We have a 'will'. That word also is conceptual. We have the ability to make choices no different than any animal has this ability. A monkey can press the green button and nothing happens, press the red and get a treat. The monkey is making a choice when he consistantly presses the red button. We only label this as a 'will'.

Now to say a 'free-will' one has to define what one means by 'free'. Free from something or what? Free from negative consequences? Free from positive ones? Or do you theist types really mean free from the direct influences of a God?

Gagezilla · « **Reply #33 on:** September 08, 2005, 08:47:36 AM »

I would find it difficult to say that the concept of will or free will does not exist and in the same breath label it a concept of the mind. Either it exists to have a name or it is fictitious and therefore not worth naming. Will, free or otherwise, falls into the same category as the psyche, consciousness, id, soul, etc. as extraphysical in nature. Atheism, BTW, precludes such concepts due to the fact that they cannot be explained by purely naturalistic development.

The monkey response to a series of buttons is not necessarily will per se, it is response to good/bad stimuli. You can easily see, given an electric shock by pushing green or getting food by pushing red that most organsims will take the path of least resistance. Push that experiment further to a larger portion of food if the monkey would choose to withstand the shock- the monkey will still push the red button to avoid the unpleasant stimulus despite the possibility of greater reward.

cimics · « **Reply #34 on:** September 08, 2005, 09:14:12 AM »

Quote

Let's not forget 'free-will' is nothing more than a concept. A placard for naming something that doesn't really exist, yet is a concept of the human mind.

Well, that's the question isn't, it? Is there such a thing as free will? I think you can look no farther than your own subjective experience to conclude that you have free will. It is self-evident. To deny free will, you have to say your subjective experience is an illusion. Interesting about-face for an atheist -- deny what seems self-evident from your own senses.

Quote

We have a 'will'. That word also is conceptual. We have the ability to make choices no different than any animal has this ability. A monkey can press the green button and nothing happens, press the red and get a treat. The monkey is making a choice when he consistantly presses the red button. We only label this as a 'will'.

I am perfectly willing to concede the possibility of animals having free will. For all I know, spiders may have free will.

Quote

Now to say a 'free-will' one has to define what one means by 'free'. Free from something or what? Free from negative consequences? Free from positive ones? Or do you theist types really mean free from the direct influences of a God?

I simply mean that, given the exact same prior causes, being able to choose between different alternatives. Doritos vs. Cheetos. You chose Doritos, but you COULD have chosen Cheetos. No prior causes dictated your choice of one over the other. That choice was within your control.

Ragnar · « **Reply #35 on:** September 08, 2005, 10:02:32 AM »

Quote from: cimics

I assume you are referencing "making the right choice." But making good choices and freely making choices are not necessarily the same (computer programs can make good choices). So I am not sure how your discussion supports or explains how free will is a product of evolution.

No, I am referencing making a choice, period. Whether it's right or wrong is beside the point, and open to interpretation. But at the survival level, you make one choice and you live, you make another choice and you die. It's really a very simple concept. The genes of those who survive are passed on. Certainly the more intelligent an early human was the more likely they were to survive, so the genes of the humans with higher intelligence were passed on, and the species grew smarter as a whole. This is basically the definition of evolution.

I think after this I'm done with this conversation, because it is boring and pointless, and ID and the idea that we have no free will are wild speculations with no evidence whatsoever. I really don't know how I let myself get drawn into this crap (hey, maybe I have no free will, after all

)

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #36 on:** September 08, 2005, 10:59:59 AM »

"Certainly the more intelligent an early human was the more likely they were to survive,"

What an interesting and preposterous claim. Given that the presumption that the world is filled to the brim with organisms with a capability that can only rudimentally be considered 'intelligence' it seems a bit contradictory to consider 'intelligence' to be a trait worthy of positive re-inforcement. If its so good, why is it so rare?

Furthermore, we have seen what human intelligence is capable of, and I hardly consider that to be a glowing endorsement of intelligence aiding survivability. Quite the opposite, we seem to use our intelligence exceptionally well at eliminating each other and destroying our own environment.

You think 'certainly' but I think you are just excercising a speculative cop-out. You think you can imagine a good scenario and wish to substitute that as a certain reality. 'Certainly' requires defense. "I think its possible" doesn't. Which are you using?

cimics · « **Reply #37 on:** September 08, 2005, 01:10:09 PM »

Quote

No, I am referencing making a choice, period.

Then you haven't really answered my objection. Computers can make good choices, which means of course, they make choices. They HAD to make those choices because of programming, hence no free will. And even dumb people have free will, right? So, while evolution might select for intelligence, you still haven't shown how it selects for free will.

Heretic · « **Reply #38 on:** September 08, 2005, 01:42:20 PM »

I would find it difficult to say that the concept of will or free will does not exist and in the same breath label it a concept of the mind.

I didn't say that as a concept free-will does not exist. I said that is all it is, a concept of the human mind. Nothing more.

You folks ask "Do we have free will?" My take on it is yes, sometimes, depends. Cheetos or Fritos? If there is only Fritos, then No we don't have any "free-will" to choose Cheetos. Sometimes we have no choice. Fritos or nothing? Now we have a choice, as we are given a choice and we have the will to freely chose.

What EXACTLY are you folks getting at here. Cut to the chase. What is it you are pondering if we have or not. DEFINE 'FREE-WILL' please.

Free from WHAT?

TheAtheistHeratic · « **Reply #39 on:** September 08, 2005, 03:34:28 PM »

Quote from: cimics

Quote
No, I am referencing making a choice, period.

Then you haven't really answered my objection. Computers can make good choices, which means of course, they make choices. They HAD to make those choices because of programming, hence no free will. And even dumb people have free will, right? So, while evolution might select for intelligence, you still haven't shown how it selects for free will.

Making good choices is only part of intelligence. Another part is creativity.

Author Topic: Free Will from an Atheist's POV. (Read 6065 times)