Belief? or practice?
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Does the non-existence of free will change your beliefs?
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Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Free will either exists as an inescapable element of our reality and being or doesn't. Either way, you can't 'practice' it. That would be like 'practicing' gravity.
I practice gravity everyday. Excessively so.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
That's nice. It completely ignores definitions in an attempt to come off as profound, but we all have our priorities.
I don't know about that either. I'm starting to think that determinism vs. free will is altogether inadequate to explain or understand our subjective state of being. At any rate, my point is mainly that a belief in either doesn't really have a direct application. I still have to make deliberate choices regardless. Well, I don't have to. I could just run on autopilot as slave to my habitual patterns of behavior. That's a more important distinction: conscious, deliberate choices vs. mindless, habitual behavior.
It would mean that those who project their subjective ideal of hard determinism onto the universe would find a way to explain free-will acts away. I'm willing to allow them that if they need it in order to remain psychologically stable. To them, hard determinism would remain true, as they would not be able to objectively see free-will.
What's profound is how everyone keeps thinking I'm profound.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
I didn't define the terms.And I apologize, I took your statement that you didn't know what they meant at face value. Just trying to help.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Read closer.
And I apologize, I took your statement that you didn't know what they meant at face value. Just trying to help.
No worries. I was just trying to expand on my position to clarify in general. It seems I'm entering the discussion quite a few pages in. I appreciate your concern.
I'm not the one calling anything I attempt profound.
If you think it's an attempt at profundity, that's your problem.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Willamena, seriously. You're an extremely intelligent woman, and quite articulate when you feel like it. The oblivious, incoherent schtick is beneath you.
No, I'm not. And stop implying that I'm trying to be profound. (I've had quite enough of that lately.)
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Well, seeing as you just proved quite clearly that you do know what words mean and are quite capable of using them clearly, what conclusions are we supposed to draw when you pretend otherwise?
Fair warning: I'm often verbally challenged.
I don't understand how this supports free will. This is nothing more then the babblings of a contradictory man, and nowhere does it say anything about uncertainty. Even so, the fact that there is uncertainty does absolutely no damage to determinism.sacs
Agreed. However, without ontological determinism (or something which approximates it), we wouldn't have the model. Without a reality in which most processes follow deterministic laws, and those that don't are at least probabilistic, the scientific model wouldn't exist.
Statements like this is why I think that if we truly acted as if free-will didn't exist-- even those who proclaimed themselves as hardcore determinists-- we would cease to have the will to live. There would just be no point to anything.