You know Jistme...

Your sarcasm just led to nowhere...

As did your baseless post...

And your earlier assumptions...

I am going to show you why...

It may take a minute or two...

I will show you where your faulty logic lies at the same time...




EDIT:

Well... Lilith, I will to your response after Jistme's...

Waiting with bated breath... or doing something equally compelling like watching concrete cure...

I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for more obfuscation....

Jistme:

I am not sure why it seems that you have taken this all so personally, but your actions taken warrant a little correction...

Allow me...


Your explanation was perfect, absolutely PERFECT...

My hat goes off to you... here, allow me to repost your example...



What you, my friend, have failed to realize in all of you self-absorption is that that was the example given as a proof that 'free will' does not exist.That was the psychology behind one who has no free will, according to their own past 'knowledge'...and you just confirmed it...

Your wrongful assumption led you down the right path Jistme...


Take my premises... follow them... add in 'ability', for all I care... I already have if you would have read it a little more objectively the first time, you would have recognized this...
----------------------------------------------------------------

Now, in regards to your extrapolations therafter...



I agree...



You have confused 'free will' with integrity, cognitive ability, and sheer determination... not to mention the cause and effect of trial and error...They did try to replicate the mechanics of a bird early on...



Re-read the OP... take note of the term 'ability', does it not encompass those things like imagination and/or creativity? Are values and morals not internalizations? It is my error for not clarifying that a little better, however, the notion of one's ability to choose 'right' from 'wrong' is what is in question...is it not?... free will?

Unfounded assumption almost always leads one to error...

Are you ready for lesson #2?

I think I understand where CreativeSoul is coming from.

Perhaps he just approached the topic incorrectly.

He states in the OP that we have no free will. I think it would be better if he had said that we have limited free will and that perhaps our free will even increases as we become more experienced in life.

He does seem to have already suggested that very young tots have almost no free will because they don’t have any basis on which to make decisions. If you are simply ‘reacting’ to things that can hardly be thought of as ‘free will’, and like CreativeSoul suggests it’s much more like cause and effect.

However, the more experience we gain the more ‘free will’ we can exercise, but ultimately our free willwill always be limited by our wisdom. In other words, and unwise person simply doesn’t have the free will to make wise choices because they don’t have the wisdom to know which choices are wise!!!

Yes, CreativeSoul certainly has a point here!!!

In fact, I think about this a lot!

On forums a question that comes up quite often is whether people would change anything about their past, if they could go back and change it. I’m usually shocked by the answers to those kinds of questions because so many people say that they wouldn’t change a thing!

My God! What does that say? To me is says that they haven’t learned a damn thing!

If I could go back and relive my life I would make literally millions upon millions of differnet decisions than I had actually made. This is, of course, based on my current wisdom. I simply didn’t have the wisdom back then to make the right choices. I was an idiot!!!

I learned a LOT over the course of my life, and it shows in the fact that if I had to do it over again I would live it entirely differently than I had. Mostly in the details, not so much in the bigger picture of things.

But the point is,… did I have the free will to make those wise choices the first time around?

NO! I did NOT!. I was restricted by ignorance and stupidity. Lack of experience, lack of wisdom.

In fact, those factors had placed such a limitation on my choices that if God were to come to me know and ask for an explanation for why I had done stupid things in my youth, my explanation would be clear and simply. Because I didn’t know any better!!!

I’m not talking about sin here. I’m not taking about having done bad things! I’m talking about doing stupid things that were simply unproductive and just downright a waste of everyone’s time including mine!

I’m also talking about all the things I didn’t do to make the lives of those around me much more wonderful. All the loving selfless things that I could have done and would have done by free will choice had I had the wisdom to even recognize them and their potential.

It wasn’t that I was inherently selfish. That’s bull crap. I was totally unselfish, I let people walk all over me and I would give anyone the shirt off my back. It wasn’t about being selfish, it was about being stupid. The kind of stupidity that can only be erased with the wisdom that comes with age.

In all honesty, if a judgmental God came to me today wanting an explanation for my life’s activities my response to that entity would be,… “So you were the one who created me with no frigg’in wisdom!!!”

I mean seriously, what is this deity asking me to account for my stupidity for? He’s the one who created me that way!!! If he doesn’t have an explanation I sure as hell don’t.

He should be explaining the whole situation to me! Because in all truth I’m totally in the dark to why life has to be this way.

Let me take the wisdom I have today and go back and re-live the damn life and then pass judgment on if you want to, but if you’re going to pass judgment on it they way it was then piss on it because I didn’t care for it either!!!

And like CreativeSoul is suggesting, in hindsight I don’t really see where I had much choice in the matter. My free will was indeed crippled by my lack of wisdom. I simply didn’t have the free will to chose to be wise back then. And the fact of the matter is that I even knew it at the time and it was frustrating!!!

So, yeah, I think I understand where CreativeSoul is coming from on this one.

I had free will within the restrictions of what I knew. The problem is that this restriction was so restrictive that my free will wasn’t very free.

In other words, I would not condone today, the choices that I made when I was younger. I made really stupid choices. The choice to smoke cigarettes was one of them. Was that choices really free will or was it just the result of cause, effect, stupidity and peer pressure??? And the fact that my best friend’s mother used to buy cigarettes by the cartons and leave packs laying around unattended where my best friend could easily grab them????

I don’t believe that I made a ‘conscious’ decision to start smoking. I think it was just a stupid thing that kids do to keep from being bored and to try something that they see adults do. I definitely attribute that choice to pure stupidity and not any conscious intentional free will choice.

That’s a choice I would never make today.

Why? Do I have any more free will today than I did then???

Well, I’m wiser today than I was then. So now my free will choices are also wiser.

In other words, my degree of free will has actually changed in a way!!!

And clearly I’m not infinitely wise, and therefore any decisions I might make today, will probably look equally stupid down the road!!!

Our free will isn’t something that’s carved in stone.

Because of this, it would be silly for a God to judge us today on things we did years ago, especially if we are standing there agreeing with him, “Oh God! You betcha! That was really stupid! I can’t even believe I did that myself!”

And for Lilith... who came out swinging as well... put the 'dukes' down...

I will quote you and post as necessary below...



According to this everyone and anyone is just 'lazy' then?

That is a little presumptive and judgemental is it not.

Do you really think all people 'choose' their own flaws?






It is the ones who do not recognize that prove the non existance of 'free will'... NO ONE chooses to not recognize. Jeez...







You were the one who said that 'free will' was the ability to choose...nothing more...nothing less... THAT is the example I gave... nothing more... nothing less...

We are not ignoring you Creative.. just off doing other things right now...

creative, no, I fight the urge to think that way, that is part of my christian upbringing. Things that happen do not happen for a reason in the sense of a great plan or destiny. If we make mistakes or commit crimes and things happen to us because of it, we are the fault of that happening. I know this will not sound good but we are the good or evil in this world, we alone make our destiny, we are our own big brother, we are the god in this world, etc.....I do not say that in a braggart way but a humble way. We are the center of this universe, each of us in our own embodiment.

This is my final post. I simply cannot go on. I have no dukes up. I can no longer argue this point. And this is because you CHOOSE to make so complicated such a simple concept.

To choose action is a choice. To choose inaction is a choice.

The complex physiology of the brain must be taken into account when comparing children to adults. There is no comparison between innate animal instincts and the human concept of free will. This is akin to saying I choose to breathe. Not exact, but similar.

I'm done. If you choose to take this as your "winning", then please feel free. It is your choice to perceive anything in any way you want. Whether you have the dignity to open your mind to other ideas is a choice you can make, or not. I simply choose to agree to disagree and that we will never agree on this. This topic could go on for days and I agree that I choose not to have the patience for it.

As Jistme said, I am busy doing other things. Things I choose to do. Or not.

Dragoness...

Yes that is a commonly held belief in the Christianity to which I have been exposed. My reference was not aimed in that direction though... I do absolutely believe that everything happens for a reason... not as punishment, though... more like manifestation of thought and/or emotional focus...

One believes what one creates and one creates what one believes.

I feel it is the recognition of this power of manifestation of thought and or emotion that goes misunderstood most of the time.

One who focuses on wonderful things increases the wonder in life... and vice-versa...

I like to entertain the idea that we have the capability to utilize our own personal energy and the energy of life around us to bring about positivity in the world. Remember that old bumper sticker "sh*t happens" well that is just what happens...lol...there is no greater plan or great divine result.

Lilith:

I am fine with this notion of agreeing to disagree...

no winning or losing...

The debate is long before us, and will indeed go on long after us... If anyone solves the issue, they will recieve a Nobel Prize... or not...

1670 A.D.???? A long debate... indeed...

No hard feelings...

I hope you also have none...

There is no right or wrong answer... yet...

I do agree with the concept of we see what we want to see for the most part because of our background. And in some cases choices will be made on that level also based on a past experience so forth but this still does not take away the free will. Free will could be discounted in many cases, I am sure with the cause and effect argument but not all. There are still free spirits who choose based on nothing from their past or beliefs. Free will is taking a chance with no prior knowledge and not knowing if it is good or bad to make the choice but making it anyway, going blindly into it, feeling something completely new and unknown.

That is your perception.. nothing more.. The statements are not proof of free will not existing.. They are just statements. Much in the same way the Bible states that the Universe revolves around the earth, and only 5 to 6000 years old. Which I find somewhat Ironic... Which I might explain further at some other point.. But I doubt it.

Your original post contained nothing even remotely synonymous to the word 'ability'.. let alone the word.

What does integrity, cognitive ability, and sheer determination got to do with imagining man flying and choosing to act on that idea? We have apples and oranges here...

Yes.. I know about people trying to mimic a bird.. The Wright Brothers did not take that path.. They took a radically different path... Which should have been impossible if we are limited by our experience.

And finally.. Apparently lilith and I managed to get under your skin some. I won't speak for her but I will speak for myself.. I'm not bothered... I'm not taking anything personally. I have no reason to fight you. All I was doing was commenting on what you write, how you write it. Typically this is indicative of someone who has an axe to grind or has a weakness to hide. Whatever it is.. Something we did exposed it.Blame me all you want, but it ain't mine to own.

However, that does fit your original premise... After all.. in your world you can't choose. Everything that happens to you is predicated by what you know, what your experience has been and by sheer primal instinct. That sorta takes you out of the loop and therefore you are completely unaccountable for your actions.

So.. I stand corrected. You have indeed proved your point!

Dragoness...

I so respect your 'soft' approach at explanation... which I can only hope to reciprocate...



The reason I feel as I do is based on the notion of causuality... not that I think in terms of 'fate', I believe we indeed do have a 'choice' within our previously determined affections.

In other words we 'will' our existance in many ways based upon things out of our control, and things within our control also. It is the things out of our control that take the 'free' out of the 'will'... I do not believe that it can be free and causual simultaneuosly...

Should I make a choice today, it is based upon the options at hand in addition to my own internalizations, and/or abilities.

Change just one of those prior conditions and my choice may change as a result of that... not by free will... but by cause..

James called it 'limited' free will...

That is appreciated...

creative I did not feel "soft" as I wrote it..lol...I am however gently disagreeing with the ideal you have, this is because I do believe in personal responsibility in our lives for most of the things that happen to us. I guess this is the same end result as your ideal here but not removing free will but because of it.

I know I do not use the big words you use and I hope I am still understandable.

I have to give you the cause and effect on most of our choices, they are based on past beliefs, events, interactions, etc...... but there are those choices made for absolutely no reason.

Example: If I was a product of my upbringing one hundred percent, I would be a bitter, sour, negative, guilt ridden, lonely woman sitting around eating myself into oblivion because of the great "tests" god had put on my shoulders during life spouting off comments about everything happens for a reason but still feeling sorry for the reason. I have plenty of female relatives who show this. I was different for some reason. I believe this to be because of my free will. I chose to take a path undone before without knowing if it would be different in the end or not.

I do understand cause and effect and that the theory is there is always a cause and effect. But free will is still available to someone who wanted to make a choice with no leaning on the past or taught. My logic could wrap around that concept if I did not know me....lol.

I am struggling with this because most of the time I agree with your ideals completely. They strike me at a logical level and so now I think I am missing something or it is going over my head or something, I hate that...LOL

Jistme:

Wow... where do I start with this one?

Hmmmmm...




Oh, I absolutely agree, there is no known 'proof' of it, either way...



I suppose that 'reasoning capabilities' are considered not even remotely close to synonymous? Ok....

Here is what I said...

******* 4.) Knowledge is supplied by furthered experience and governed by reasoning capabilities which decifer truthes based on previous internalizations... *******

As I said earlier, it is my error to not have been a little more clear. Knowledge does include ability, as does reasoning capabilities, but I was not specific in terminology.

Would it have made any difference though?





You ARE joking here right? One must first have the ability to imagine such a thing, then the integrity to be able to distinguish the knowns in order to form a theory, then the determination to pursue the goal until success is found, all of which requires causuality.





Ok...Why would trying something 'new' not be based upon causual affect? Invention and innovation are not compatible with mere 'free will'... If that were the case, humans would have been flying long before then... on 'free will' alone. It seems you are the one comparing apples and oranges here. It took learning from experience. Learning requires causuality for expanded choice, not 'free will'.



Ok... If you say so...

True premises never lead to false conclusions.






Personal attacks throughout... need I say more?

Be well Jistme...

TO Creative:

Have you read anything on "compatibilism"? Just curious.

but you have to option to eat are not. There is a choice to everything. That choice does lead to a cause and effect because all things do, but every instance in your life where you make a decision that decision is yours to make hence free will.