How does atheism explain free-will?
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
even exist in the atheist world-view?
Thoughts.
Decision.
Action.
If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
fully explained through stricly chemical reactions. Deciding to lift your
right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical reaction
in your brain. This is fully testable under science. In theory, you could
induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual not
only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his hand.
Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger with one pickle, 3
dabs of ketchup and a large half-diet half regular coke is a completely
measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not? In theory, by inducing
the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be able
to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do this.
I have not really delved into this much, but has anyone ever tried such an
experiment? Taking it one step futher, it should therefore be fully
explainable that even your thoughts (the ones you "decide" not to act on)
are also inducable through simply electrical/chemical stimulli
If all human thoughts and decisions are explainable completely by
chemical/electrical reactions in the brain, then is that not arguing that
the chemical/electrical reactions are the casual agents to those thoughts
and decisions and not vice versa? If chemical reactions are the casual
agents, then how can you explain a chemical being able to cause a biological
organism to think about and then decide to compute formulas such as the
Hodge Conjecture or the orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2? If all thoughts
are effected by chemical/electrical stimulii, then what exactly, therefore,
is the causual agent that tells the chemical/electrical processes to cause
the thoughts that the biological organism should decide to eat 3 french
fries, then a bite of cheeseburger, pause before taking a desired drink to
mentally solve a problem in Visual Basic, take another bite of cheeseburger,
then take a drink? What exactly was the primary cause of those chain of
thoughts that eventually led to the decisions that then in turn led to
action. If merely chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts, then what
told the chemicals "hey, now lets tell this organism that its time to solve
the Hodge Conjecture. Ok chemicals, give him the thought, and them make him
decide to act"
--
..........................
One God
One Lifetime
One Hope
remove "spammfilter" from my email address to reply to me.
.
Xaonon
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> Thoughts.
> Decision.
> Action.
>
> If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
> fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
[etc]
Physics is not deterministic. Even in classical mechanics chaos theory
applies---there is a sensitive dependence on initial conditions: arbitrarily
small differences do not necessarily cause negligable or even small
divergances. Add quantum mechanics to the mix, and things get even hairier.
In other words, just knowing the inital state of a system is not enough to
determine how that system will change over time. True randomness does exist.
--
Xaonon, EAC Chief of Mad Scientists and informal BAAWA, aa #1821, Kibo #: 1
Visit The Nexus Of All Coolness (a.k.a. my site) at http://xaonon.cjb.net/
"Uploading isn't a >H goal because it's one step closer to some mythical and
unknowable perfection, but because it'll be jolly practical." -- Rich Artym
Jesse
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> Thoughts.
> Decision.
> Action.
>
The scientific study of that is called psychology.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Xaonon" <xao...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
news:xaonon-AEAE1C....@netnews.attbi.com...
> In article <pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>,
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
> > I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> > even exist in the atheist world-view?
> >
> > Thoughts.
> > Decision.
> > Action.
> >
> > If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions
are
> > fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
> [etc]
>
> Physics is not deterministic. Even in classical mechanics chaos theory
> applies---there is a sensitive dependence on initial conditions:
arbitrarily
> small differences do not necessarily cause negligable or even small
> divergances. Add quantum mechanics to the mix, and things get even
hairier.
> In other words, just knowing the inital state of a system is not enough to
> determine how that system will change over time. True randomness does
exist.
>
> --
But you haven't explained anything. All you have done is cited some
definitions of science. "Add quatum mechanics to the mix"....?? OK, I've
added it. How does this explain the ability to make decisions? Are
decisions in the brain caused by chemical/electrical stimulii or are they
not? Actually its quite a simple question. If the are not, then what
causes decisions, or are you claiming they are uncaused? If uncaused then
how does that explain decisions that are made based upon a set of
concsciously known options and a set of potetial options? And how can you
say "physics is not deterministic" in an absolute sense? Intel makes 10
million CPU"s per year that all operate upon principles of physics. All
these chips function according to determined design. They operate as
expected and can be replicated as expected. We can replicate
chemical/electrical stimullii that causes your heart to beat. We determine
the stimulii based upon known stimulii, we then execute the stimulli and get
the responses as expected. Surely the brain is no different? If you are
going to apply all this philosophy to a simple biological
chemical/electrical process, then please clarify how you connect them?
You've not answered a thing.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
And.....how do you explain freewill then? Or does it even exist? You are
the atheist (i am assuming)- tell me, then, do you have freewill?
Ray Fischer
>I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
>even exist in the atheist world-view?
If one accepts the theories of Einstein (who was most certainly NOT an
atheist) then there is no "free will". Time is an illusion and we
travel along it just like driving a car along a highway.
Shrug.
--
Ray Fischer Most people, sometime in their lives, stumble across truth.
rfis...@sonic.net Most jump up, brush themselves off, and hurry on about
their business as if nothing had happened. -- Churchill
Thomas P.
<no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
>even exist in the atheist world-view?
I don't see any reason why their should be an atheist view of free
will. Just like among theists, some atheists believe in it and some
don't - for a variety of reasons. Paraphrasing Isaac Bashevis Singer,
I believe there is no such thing as free will, but that we have to
live as if there were; because we have no choice.
Thomas P.
"Men go and come, but earth abides."
Jim Cowling
>I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
>even exist in the atheist world-view?
*Boggle*
How does a theist explain free will? If there exists a being which is
omniscient, then free will cannot exist.
>If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
>fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
Incorrect.
--
Spamblock: There is no 'p' in my address.
Jesse
details because you can really write a book about different viewpoints on
decision making, plus I don't have my textbook with me.
However, in general, psychologists would say your pattern of decision making
is determined by your pass experience. You are conditioned to do things.
Some would say that you make decisions by weighing which would benefit you
the most.
And what is your definition of free-will? There is always something that
motivates you to make a certain decision. Therefore, more or less you are
always influenced by the things surround you. If you are talking about
making non-reasonable decisions or random decisions... I think atheist
people would explain it as "insane."
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:PWk69.124379$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Ray Fischer" <rfis...@newbolt.sonic.net> wrote in message
news:ajcnqn$rq7$1...@newbolt.sonic.net...
> Ignorance Amongst Whitey's <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> >even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> If one accepts the theories of Einstein (who was most certainly NOT an
> atheist) then there is no "free will". Time is an illusion and we
> travel along it just like driving a car along a highway.
>
> Shrug.
Then what caused your thoughts? You formulate complex thoughts to make a
rational response to me (though very short, I am assuming you have the
ability to formulate a complex response to an argument). Where do
complicated deterministic thoughts such as a rational refutation to an
argument come from? Caused by chemicals? Then such thoughts could be
replicated could they not?
\
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
"Thomas P." <ton...@get2spamnet.dk> wrote in message
news:3d59e2e5...@nyheder.get2net.dk...
then all your thoughts could be induced, right? Are they caused? What
biological chemical function, then, told your brain to formulate a
continuous complicated deterministic response to my question? Random
events?
Brian
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
only one). I am agnostic, but I agree with you on this point. If life is
just an extension of nature and all events in nature are the results of
other events going all the way back to the big bang, then without a god,
IMHO life doesn't have free will. Just because we can't calculate all the
variables that go into a toss of the dice doesn't mean that the result
wasn't predetermined from the time they left the players hand, or even
earlier.
Brian
Chose freedom, reject religion
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Jim Cowling" <bigk...@pscowling.net> wrote in message
news:yvl69.144873$f05.7...@news1.calgary.shaw.ca...
> In article <pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>, "Ignorance
Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> >even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> *Boggle*
>
> How does a theist explain free will? If there exists a being which is
> omniscient, then free will cannot exist.
>
i really want to know the atheist point of view. I am less interested in
debate and more interested in knowing how atheists view this. What does my
veiw have to do with this? I dont care about my view. I want to know your
view. I'm looking for the atheist opinion, I dont really care about the
theist opinion. Do you have not even a theory on this subject?
> >If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
> >fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
>
> Incorrect.
How? Which part is incorrect- the part about man being only physical or the
part about thoughts being chemical (add electrical). Whatever is wrong,
please by all means make it right and explain it! Thats why I am here, so
you can enlighten me
:)
Ray Fischer
>"Ray Fischer" <rfis...@newbolt.sonic.net> wrote in message
>> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
>> >even exist in the atheist world-view?
>>
>> If one accepts the theories of Einstein (who was most certainly NOT an
>> atheist) then there is no "free will". Time is an illusion and we
>> travel along it just like driving a car along a highway.
>>
>> Shrug.
>
>Then what caused your thoughts?
Does there need to be a "cause"?
> You formulate complex thoughts to make a
>rational response to me
Or I encounter complex thoughts in my travel through space-time.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Brian" <bcrou...@netcarrier.com> wrote in message
news:oKl69.620$1H3.52...@news.netcarrier.net...
Thank you Brian. You are the first person to finally give an opinion that
has meaning. I appreciate this. I hope that you will permit me to ask you
a few questions.
If free-will does not exist (and I understand how you reached that
conclusion), then what caused the chemical/electrical stimulii that "forced"
you to formulate a complex, deterministic response to my question?
Something had to initiate the process in which your neural pathways
triggered your forced response, or do you think the chemical/electrical
stimulii was uncaused? Regardless, if your thoughts were caused by physical
forces, therefore you think that it is feasible to scientifically "induce"
the exact same thoughts?
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
"Jesse" <Jess...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:GDl69.23384$Dn.43...@twister.nyc.rr.com...
> I'm a Christian but I've taken psychology before. It's hard to get into
> details because you can really write a book about different viewpoints on
> decision making, plus I don't have my textbook with me.
>
> However, in general, psychologists would say your pattern of decision
making
> is determined by your pass experience. You are conditioned to do things.
> Some would say that you make decisions by weighing which would benefit you
> the most.
>
> And what is your definition of free-will?
I dont know. I am asking this to everyone else. Maybe such a thing
doesn't exist. I am just asking, i offer no answers.
Ty
On 13-Aug-2002, "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
Can a belief set based on atheism explain free will or does it even exist
> Thoughts.
> Decision.
> Action.
>
> If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
> fully explained through stricly chemical reactions. Deciding to lift your
> right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical reaction
> in your brain. This is fully testable under science. In theory, you could
> induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual not
> only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his hand.
> Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger with one pickle, 3
> dabs of ketchup and a large half-diet half regular coke is a completely
> measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not? In theory, by inducing
> the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be able
> to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do this.
> I have not really delved into this much, but has anyone ever tried such an
> experiment?
Yes, but I heard of them so long ago, I'm afraid I lost the source. The experiments took
place during the '60s and '70s. I remember the results were really shocking, and no pun
intended. They did induce strong and even violent emotions in people using selective
electro-stimulation in areas of their brains. Michael Crichton's "Terminal Man" is a
novel based on those experiments.
Taking it one step futher, it should therefore be fully
> explainable that even your thoughts (the ones you "decide" not to act on)
> are also inducable through simply electrical/chemical stimulli
>
> If all human thoughts and decisions are explainable completely by
> chemical/electrical reactions in the brain, then is that not arguing that
> the chemical/electrical reactions are the casual agents to those thoughts
> and decisions and not vice versa?
Rebuttal: A material antecedent for Will, like the chemical/electrical activity in the
brain, does not disprove action of Will, in fact, in affirms it, and puts its action
solidly in the physical universe. Nevertheless, it also removes it from the realm of
spiritualism so it loses the aura of the eternal.
Consequences: Will definitely exists, but it's a weaker force than assumed under
spiritualism, and it can be physically defeated or circumvented.
Strong ethical penalties against these actions is recommended.
Personal consequences: might this knowledge weaken some people in their Will knowing it's
not eternal? Perhaps, but there are other ways to strengthen it.
If chemical reactions are the casual
> agents, then how can you explain a chemical being able to cause a biological
> organism to think about and then decide to compute formulas such as the
> Hodge Conjecture or the orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2?
The organism, it's Will, has feedback mechanisms and a storehouse of mental tools called
the Mind that enable it to alter itself physically and mentally into a form conducive to
computing formulas, such as Hodge Conjecture or the orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2. It,
perhaps, is not the perfect machine for doing this, but it's self-adaptable enough.
If all thoughts
> are effected by chemical/electrical stimulii, then what exactly, therefore,
> is the causual agent that tells the chemical/electrical processes to cause
> the thoughts that the biological organism should decide to eat 3 french
> fries, then a bite of cheeseburger, pause before taking a desired drink to
> mentally solve a problem in Visual Basic, take another bite of cheeseburger,
> then take a drink? What exactly was the primary cause of those chain of
> thoughts that eventually led to the decisions that then in turn led to
> action. If merely chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts, then what
> told the chemicals "hey, now lets tell this organism that its time to solve
> the Hodge Conjecture. Ok chemicals, give him the thought, and them make him
> decide to act"
How much are you willing to read about it? Neuro-physiologists commit their lifetimes to
this, and your asking to understand it in one easy paragraph. Get real.
This is a trick question, because finally, the human Mind is not adaptable to containing
or communicating the amount of information required to answer it completely. I know
that's unsatisfying-- however, it's hardly better with theism because all you do is
simply transfere the question to "What causes God?" and then forbid the question as
blasphemy, calling yourself satisfied. It's not the answer you want, it's the authority.
--
Ty
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Ray Fischer" <rfis...@newbolt.sonic.net> wrote in message
news:ajcp10$tr2$1...@newbolt.sonic.net...
> Ignorance Amongst Whitey's <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >"Ray Fischer" <rfis...@newbolt.sonic.net> wrote in message
> >> Ignorance Amongst Whitey's <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
> >> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
it
> >> >even exist in the atheist world-view?
> >>
> >> If one accepts the theories of Einstein (who was most certainly NOT an
> >> atheist) then there is no "free will". Time is an illusion and we
> >> travel along it just like driving a car along a highway.
> >>
> >> Shrug.
> >
> >Then what caused your thoughts?
>
> Does there need to be a "cause"?
You tell me. I am asking for your opinion. I assume you have one on this?
Freewill is a great subject, one that I cannot believe an atheist would not
give much consideration too. I am interesed in the atheistic theories on
freewill (if it even exists)
If uncaused, then how can man be purely physical? Are thoughts, then,
measurable, or are they immaterial? If thoughts are physical in nature,
then you are saying for every thought you have, new material is being added
inside your head?? But if they are immaterial (i.e. are not composed of
natural particles), then you are on the path that says man has a soul.
Please enlighten me with your point of view.
Jim Cowling
>
>> Incorrect.
>
>How? Which part is incorrect- the part about man being only physical or the
>part about thoughts being chemical (add electrical). Whatever is wrong,
>please by all means make it right and explain it! Thats why I am here, so
>you can enlighten me
Others have explained it better in this thread.
There is no set path for transmissions through the brain's neural network; the
path any transmission can take is more-or-less random, in much the same way
that dropping a ball bearing through a pachinko machine will give you random
results.
Plus, the brain is constantly restructuring itself as cells die and are
replaced (it has been shown that the old saw about brain cells never
regenerating is false). The means by which cells are replaced and when is not
predictable -- in more or less the same way that you can't know exactly when a
cut will heal.
In any case, it's not merely chemical, or even electrical; it's a
variable-path neural network with true randomness.
In the final analysis, though, we don't know precisely how the brain works,
but we do know it's not a predictable chemical engine.
That said, how do I know I have free will? Because I decided to write this
message. And now I'll go grab a diet cola from the fridge. Since there's no
evidence that any outside agency has commanded me to do these things, I must
assume that I'm doing them because I want to.
And, to paraphrase an earlier quote: even if we don't have free will, we think
we do, so does it matter?
Jim Cowling
>
>I've been thinking about this question for some time (I thought I was the
>only one). I am agnostic, but I agree with you on this point. If life is
>just an extension of nature and all events in nature are the results of
>other events going all the way back to the big bang, then without a god,
>IMHO life doesn't have free will. Just because we can't calculate all the
>variables that go into a toss of the dice doesn't mean that the result
>wasn't predetermined from the time they left the players hand, or even
>earlier.
I disagree with this, because the universe is not perfectly causal. I'm a firm
believer in chaos theory; in complex systems, no result can be perfectly
predicted. As such, if the "tape" of the universe was rewound and replayed,
the song might be different this time around.
drchaffee
news:pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
The first thing to understand, in my opinion, is that atheism simply means
without belief in god(s). It doesn't mean theist hater, or religion hater,
or Christian hater. The second thing to understand is that atheism doesn't
speak to the free-will conjecture. Atheists have a wide variety of beliefs
in this area (or not!).
I am a determinist (undeniable cause and effect) and a materialist (purely
physical universe - no special mental goop) and a relativist (at least in
some respects). There are plenty of atheists who will point to chaos theory
or quantum mechanics to find an excuse for free-will. For me, randomness
merely means unplanned or unavoidable ignorance - it doesn't imply an
inconsistent reality. (Nor does it necessitate a consistent reality - but I
lean that way due to the luke-warm success of science.) The raindrop hits a
particular chunk of sidewalk for a reason - not because of someone's plan,
or "chance", but through cause and effect in accordance with physical laws
(to the extent we can claim to know them).
I don't believe free-will is compatible with an omniscient being. Then
again, I don't believe in free-will or an omniscient being, so it's academic
for me. Free-will, if presuming more under the hood than "chance", typically
resorts to postulating the existence of an immaterial soul. In a discussion
of the existence of God, this free-will angle is ubiquitous. It is
question-begging from my point of view. Anyhow, I hope this has answered
your question.
Why did you include groups alt.abortion, alt.bible, and
alt.religion.christian, if you were merely after the opinion of atheists?
David K. Lambert
not a pure science.
David L.
"Jesse" <Jess...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:qKk69.23317$Dn.43...@twister.nyc.rr.com...
>
Brian
I'm not sure I understand your first question. The obvious answer would be -
your original post was the cause of the chemical/electrical stimulii that
"forced" me to formulate a complex, deterministic response to your question.
Is that what your lookin for?
> Regardless, if your thoughts were caused by physical
> forces, therefore you think that it is feasible to scientifically "induce"
> the exact same thoughts?
>
In the same person, yes.
Brian
I'm not well versed in chaos theory, but it seems to me that either all is
predetermined or none is. If we can make a machine as complex as a Tomahawk
missile and it hits it's intended target most of the time, then it's clear
that physics acts in predictable ways. The ones that didn't hit their
intended targets can be attributed to unforseen physical influences.
Dave W
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
> it even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
>
I suppose you would have to define the boundaries of free will. We are
obviously bound by the decisions that stimuli induce. Your example leaves
out why the subject went to McDonalds. I would assume he was hungry. That
would be a response to chemical stimuli. The choice of Mickey D's would be
a product of previous experience.
While we can move limbs with electrical stimuli and affect mood to a
certain degree with pharmaceuticals. We cannot(to my knowledge) affect
abstract decisions. IMHO decisions that are not biological (I am
hungry/hot/cold/tired) are products of experience. I think, however those
more complicated decisions are just combinations of the simpler ones...
We live and learn and subsequently put limits on our own free will.
Sounds a little like evolution, doesn't it?
--
Dave W a.a. #1967
Jim Cowling
>
>I'm not well versed in chaos theory, but it seems to me that either all is
>predetermined or none is.
As you said, you're not well versed in chaos theory.
Richard
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message news:pVk69.107585$sA3.2...@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net...
>
And how can you
> say "physics is not deterministic" in an absolute sense? Intel makes 10
> million CPU"s per year that all operate upon principles of physics.
Those CPUs are not perfect, but are carefully designed to still operate
provided certain error tolerances are still being met. For example,
for individual transistors on a chip, you may have a situation
where a voltage of 0.7 Volts plus or minus a possible error of 0.3 Volts
is sufficient to represent an "on" state. If the vast majority
of transistors are within that error tolerance, the CPU functions.
>All
> these chips function according to determined design.
All? Sorry that's wrong. A certain percentage of chips are always
defective (that percentage can be quite high depending on the device
in question). Needless to say, the chips are tested before leaving
the factory. The terminology that gets used is chip YIELD.
If you were a student of electrical engineering, you'd end up
studying this as a part of your course work. In fact, here are
some course notes if you're curious -
http://courses.ece.uiuc.edu/ece482/Sup/Yield/
> We can replicate
> chemical/electrical stimullii that causes your heart to beat. We determine
> the stimulii based upon known stimulii, we then execute the stimulli and get
> the responses as expected. Surely the brain is no different?
> If you are going to apply all this philosophy to a simple biological
> chemical/electrical process, then please clarify how you connect them?
Simple? Brain function is infinitely more complex than
heart function. Individual heart cells will contract on their
own automatically and are for the most part undifferentated.
On the other hand, processes such as thought and perception
depend on specific neurons interacting with other specific
neurons in a specific pattern over a complex network. In
this regard, your brain/heart comparison is like comparing
the operation of a door bell with that of a supercomputer
with an operating system consisting of millions of lines
of compiled code. Imagine you were faced with the task
of trying to reproduce the source code of that supercomputer
by simply feeding the computer data and seeing what came
out. Needless to say, that would be an extremely time
consuming and difficult process. That is essentially the
kind of problem researchers face in trying to understand
the function of the brain.
That said, a lot of progress has been made.
The areas of the brain involved with specific
functions such as perception and thought
have been mapped. Maladies such as depression,
psychosis and drug addiction are now becoming
understood on a biochemical level. Behavior to
a certain degree can be stimulated and controlled - I
can inject you with hormones to stimulate your sexual
desire, give you drugs to relieve anxiety and compulsive
behavior, open your skull up and electrically stimulate
your brain in such a way that old memories
immediately become present in your mind.
With regards to doing something like being
able to perform the appropriate actions on
your brain to make you specifically decide to
eat three potato chips and a pickle, we're
obviously not there yet. In regards to my
computer analogy, such a task might be akin to
trying to reconstruct lines 577727-6888621
of the operating system code, lines in which
207 calls calls to 144 different subroutines
are made, subroutines which in turn depend
on calls to more basic subroutines and so forth.
Richard
Denis Loubet
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
Well, the answer to the thread title is that atheism says nothing at all
about free will.
The answer to the follow-up question about how atheists explain free will is
different, and I can only answer for me.
The laws of physics would seem to indicate a deterministic universe in which
we don't have anything we could call free will, but the wrench of quantum
mechanics adds a randomizing factor that wrecks any predictive ability.
However, I don't think that changes anything. So what if quantum mechanics
or chaos theory scrambles everything up, the question is do *I* make
decisions? Well, if the universe were classical, then the initial conditions
at the big bang set in motion an inevitable sequence of events that resulted
in my "decisions". Clearly I cannot claim credit for my decisions if they
were decided at the beginning of time, so under a classical view of physics,
I have no free will. Similarly, if we include the randomizing effects of QM
into the mix, then rather than being a slave to classical physics, I'm a
slave to a random number generator. There doesn't actually seem to *be* a
situation in which free will can exist.
So what do I do? I admit that it's possible that my decisions are not mine,
and then ignore the problem because the illusion of free will is so complete
that I don't really care.
--
Denis Loubet
dlo...@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
Kronius
news:pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
Even if my thoughts and actions are all predetermined, I am still doing what
I want to do. That is free will.
> Thoughts.
> Decision.
> Action.
>
> If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
> fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
I would hesitate before I accepted "Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle" as
an argument for free will, or even an argument against the
pre-determinability of the human brain. As I have stated over and over in
this newsgroup neither the uncertainty principle nor quantum mechanics
prevents us from accurately predicting the behavior of computer processors
(the principles of quantum mechanics are VITAL to a CPU). If there is
anything that years of research of quantum mechanics has demonstrated, it is
that randomness on the microscopic scale still allows predictability on the
macroscopic. Even though the brain may have elements of randomness on
certain levels, it can still be possible to predict a person's thoughts or
actions on the macroscopic scale. A great example of this is when you "know"
what a close friend or relative is going to do before they do it.
Brian Voth
>
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
Atheism consists of a single distinguishing feature: an
atheist does not believe in god. There is no atheist world-view
beyond that and in asking your question you will get answers
particular to atheists and not to atheism.
I personally view both god and free will as being non-
falsifiable concepts, the gist of which is that if there is no
possible piece of evidence that can disprove something, it is
a meaningless concept. All conclusions drawn about the concept
are erroneous and can be dubbed as myths.
Consider if I was able to predict your every action for
the next 20 years with perfect accuracy. Does this disprove
free will? Perhaps it would to most people, who would tire of
hearing contrary explanations, but the simple fact is that you
could always claim that you were acting in accordance with my
predictions on purpose. Nothing can falsify free will, thus
it must be discounted as an explanation for anything.
> If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
> fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
Regardless of whether a person is made up of matter, or
some combination of physical and spiritual substances, you still
end up with the same question of how the brain/mind/soul works.
I think that the appearance of free will, that is the resistance
that people show towards reacting reflexively to a given situation,
is due to the fact that acting in a predictable manner has become
a severe survival disadvantage. A person whose behavior becomes
predictable is a person who is easily victimized, and so the mind
compensates for this by inhibiting actions which are viewed as
leaving them vulnerable. They perform another course of action
instead.
Of course, people eventually reach their limit on how
creative they can get with alternative actions. We can easily
observe this in lower animals because we are simply smarter
than they are. But since humans are on equal footing with each
other, it is much harder for one to completely understand
another's behaviors. However, it is a mistake to believe that
one's lack of ability to understand something's behavior confers
upon the observed the mythological prowess of being a universal
prime mover.
> One God
> One Lifetime
> One Hope
Add one rifle and you have a recipe for disaster.
Brian
--
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point
is to discover them." -- Galileo Galilei
Richard Smol
no...@nospam.com says...
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
What ABOUT free will? It's there.. it makes me answer this post, for
instance. It doesn't hold any specific significance to atheists in
general, since the only thing all atheists really agree upon is the
lack of belief in gods.
RS
Richard Smol
davidl...@NOSMAMexeculink.com says...
> Psychology is a pseudoscience. Psychiatry is a little closer but it is still
> not a pure science.
Bullshit. Tell that to a cognitive psychologist or AI researcher, who
knows as much about making mathematical models as a physicist or
astronomer. Psychology is not a pseudo-science since the scientific
method is used in it rigorously.
RS
Richard Smol
says...
> If one accepts the theories of Einstein (who was most certainly NOT an
> atheist) then there is no "free will".
Einstein may not have been a strong atheist, but he certainly lacked
belief in a personal god.
RS
Fletch
<snip>
>Why did you include groups alt.abortion, alt.bible, and
>alt.religion.christian, if you were merely after the opinion of atheists?
>
Obviously he ignored the weaker impulse to be mature and intelligent, and
succumbed to the stronger impulse to be a shit-stirrer.
:)
-Fletch
A#638
To reply, remove the underpants from my email address.
Say NO to spam.
http://www.looweeze.com to scatter your brain.
386sx
> n...@nosam.com says...
>
>> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
>> it even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> What ABOUT free will? It's there.. it makes me answer this post, for
> instance. It doesn't hold any specific significance to atheists in
> general, since the only thing all atheists really agree upon is the lack
> of belief in gods.
What he's really asking is: "You don't know what free will is, therefore
there is a God, and He's in the Bible."
--
386
If God could make angels, why did he bother with men? -- John Ings
Fletch
wrote:
>I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
>even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
>Thoughts.
>Decision.
>Action.
>
>If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
>fully explained through stricly chemical reactions. Deciding to lift your
>right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical reaction
>in your brain. This is fully testable under science. In theory, you could
>induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual not
>only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his hand.
>Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger with one pickle, 3
>dabs of ketchup and a large half-diet half regular coke is a completely
>measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not?
<snip>
First and foremost, you are an idiot. I choose freely to type this inflammatory
ad-hominin attack, because you have used the phrase "within atheistic thought"
in a deliberate attempt to be offensive and provoke angry reactions (and
possibly arguments) in 4 off-topic newsgroups.
Second, I suggest that free will does not exist, regardless of my
tongue-in-cheek opening sentence in that first paragraph. Maybe you've seen
experiments in hypnosis wherein a suggestion was placed in a subject's mind that
caused them to (seemingly spontaneously) perform some action (for example
scratching their nose, picking up an object, coughing) on a verbal cue from the
hypnotist *after* the subject had been awoken from their hypnosis. This would
suggest that apparently random and freely-chosen actions can be caused by
external manipulation without the subject's knowledge or suspicion.
If such actions can appear to the subject to be of their own volition, and yet
are caused by an external force, then what is to say that *any* action of the
subject is not similarly caused? It has been shown that *not all* actions are
due to internal will. It would be very hard to show that *no* actions are due
to (free) internal will, but it has been shown that the statement "All actions
are due to free will" is false.
Herb Martin
> >even exist in the atheist world-view?
> >
> >Thoughts.
> >Decision.
> >Action.
Presuming the normal definition of free will, it cannot be
demonstrated to exist.
Quantum Uncertainty will -- perhaps -- server as an direct
and convincing argument the Universe and all that happens
is no pre-ordained but that in no way implies that humans
or other creatures have any direct choice.
There is however an IMPLICIT 'proof' of free will that suffices
for most scientists on a daily basis even if they are not
consciously aware of it.
Either we have free will or we do not.
If we do not, then to CHOOSE to claim that we do is not a error
but an unavoidable consequence of the lack of a true choice.
If we do have free choices, it would be an error to choose
incorrect to claim that we have no choice.
Therefore, "We have free will and make true choices." is the
best statement we can make concerning the question.
[This proof is IMPLICIT, but it works.]
All of us (with very few exceptions) act 'as if' we have the
ability to choose, because on reflection this seems to offer
us the best possible chance for happiness and success and
because any other answer is meaningless or irrelevant.
Herb Martin
"We cannot even prove that the world exists as a physical
thing, but we all act as if it does -- to do otherwise risks
being run over by automobiles or falling from tall buildings."
Arjen Klaver
<edit use="shorter message">
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> Thoughts, Decision, Action.
>
> If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
> fully explained through stricly chemical reactions. In theory, by inducing
> the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be able
> to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do this.
>
> If all human thoughts and decisions are explainable completely by
> chemical/electrical reactions in the brain, then is that not arguing that
> the chemical/electrical reactions are the casual agents to those thoughts
> and decisions and not vice versa? If chemical reactions are the casual
> agents, then how can you explain a chemical being able to cause a biological
> organism to think about and then decide to compute formulas such as the
> Hodge Conjecture or the orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2?
> .
</edit>
I would like to make an analogy to computers. On the level of
transistors the computers can be described in term of electron drifts,
voltage, Schottky barriers and so on. But if you want to know how a
computer works then this is clearly not enough. These billions of
tansistors are wired in a specific way. It is not humanly posible to
describe a full computer running a special piece of software on a
transistor level. (If i click this button then in transistor #98655754
the electron flux to the drain will increase and therefore.........)
I see free will as a little piece of software running on my
hardware/brain. This software observes my surroundings and makes up
possible scenario's how to interact with my surroundings. I then
calculate all the possible effects of my scenario's and choose the
best scenario.
With this analogy I can explain this stuff:
I can learn more of the same stuff by just inserting data in huge
databases.
I can learn new stuff by morphing my own code. This is also done by
many computer virii.
I can think of strange and before untaughed scenario's. Like a robot
learning to walk by itself, or like chess compu deep blue learning new
strategies by itself.
I also gives an indication that absolute free will cannot be. I only
can calculate a finite number of scenario's and thus not all possible
actions will be evaluated.
Greetings
Arjen Klaver
Tom Adams
> In article <pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>,
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
> > I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> > even exist in the atheist world-view?
> >
> > Decision.
> > Action.
> >
> > If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
> > fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
>
> Physics is not deterministic. Even in classical mechanics chaos theory
> applies---there is a sensitive dependence on initial conditions: arbitrarily
> small differences do not necessarily cause negligable or even small
> divergances. Add quantum mechanics to the mix, and things get even hairier.
> In other words, just knowing the inital state of a system is not enough to
> determine how that system will change over time. True randomness does exist.
That refutes determinism, but it does not support free will, since
free will is not the same as random behaviour.
Thomas P.
<no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>"Thomas P." <ton...@get2spamnet.dk> wrote in message
>news:3d59e2e5...@nyheder.get2net.dk...
>> On Wed, 14 Aug 2002 02:59:33 GMT, "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's"
>> <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>
>> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
>> >even exist in the atheist world-view?
>>
>> I don't see any reason why their should be an atheist view of free
>> will. Just like among theists, some atheists believe in it and some
>> don't - for a variety of reasons. Paraphrasing Isaac Bashevis Singer,
>> I believe there is no such thing as free will, but that we have to
>> live as if there were; because we have no choice.
>
>then all your thoughts could be induced, right? Are they caused? What
>biological chemical function, then, told your brain to formulate a
>continuous complicated deterministic response to my question? Random
>events?
I haven't the slightest idea.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thomas P.
>>
>> "Men go and come, but earth abides."
>
>
Thomas P.
"Men go and come, but earth abides."
Don Kresch
Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> let us all know that:
>I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will?
It exists.
Don
---
aa #51, Knight of BAAWA, DNRC o-, EAC Decryption squad
Atheist Minister for St. Dogbert.
"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another"
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man"
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
atheist.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
"Thomas P." <ton...@get2spamnet.dk> wrote in message
news:3d5a4b85...@nyheder.get2net.dk...
surely you have an opinion on whether or not you have freewill??? I'm just
interested in opinions.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Jim Cowling" <bigk...@pscowling.net> wrote in message
news:C%m69.139037$v53.7...@news3.calgary.shaw.ca...
> In article <6Pm69.622$KK3.52...@news.netcarrier.net>, "Brian"
<bcrou...@netcarrier.com> wrote:
> >
> >I'm not well versed in chaos theory, but it seems to me that either all
is
> >predetermined or none is.
>
> As you said, you're not well versed in chaos theory.
>
Then enlighten us. How does this apply to thoughts?
Rather than commit an ad-hominem fallacy, please shed to light and clarify,
those things that are incorrect.
--
..........................
One God
One Lifetime
One Hope
remove "spammfilter" from my email address to reply to me.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"ABVP" <AB...@yahoo.fr> wrote in message
news:d466793f.02081...@posting.google.com...
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:<pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
> > I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> > even exist in the atheist world-view?
> >
> > Thoughts.
> > Decision.
> > Action.
> >
> > If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions
are
> > fully explained through stricly chemical reactions. Deciding to lift
your
> > right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical
reaction
> > in your brain. This is fully testable under science. In theory, you
could
> > induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual not
> > only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his hand.
> > Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger with one pickle,
3
> > dabs of ketchup and a large half-diet half regular coke is a completely
> > measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not? In theory, by
inducing
> > the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be
able
> > to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do this.
> > I have not really delved into this much, but has anyone ever tried such
an
> > experiment? Taking it one step futher, it should therefore be fully
> > explainable that even your thoughts (the ones you "decide" not to act
on)
> > are also inducable through simply electrical/chemical stimulli
> >
> > If all human thoughts and decisions are explainable completely by
> > chemical/electrical reactions in the brain, then is that not arguing
that
> > the chemical/electrical reactions are the casual agents to those
thoughts
> > and decisions and not vice versa? If chemical reactions are the casual
> > agents, then how can you explain a chemical being able to cause a
biological
> > organism to think about and then decide to compute formulas such as the
> > Hodge Conjecture or the orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2? If all
thoughts
> > are effected by chemical/electrical stimulii, then what exactly,
therefore,
> > is the causual agent that tells the chemical/electrical processes to
cause
> > the thoughts that the biological organism should decide to eat 3 french
> > fries, then a bite of cheeseburger, pause before taking a desired drink
to
> > mentally solve a problem in Visual Basic, take another bite of
cheeseburger,
> > then take a drink? What exactly was the primary cause of those chain of
> > thoughts that eventually led to the decisions that then in turn led to
> > action. If merely chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts, then
what
> > told the chemicals "hey, now lets tell this organism that its time to
solve
> > the Hodge Conjecture. Ok chemicals, give him the thought, and them make
him
> > decide to act"
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ..........................
> >
> > One God
> > One Lifetime
> > One Hope
> >
> > remove "spammfilter" from my email address to reply to me.
> >
> > .
>
> This is disturbing.]
Which part? That I am a theist which has nothing to do with me asking an
honest question, or you offering not even a single sentence that formulates
Elf Sternberg
>I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
>it even exist in the atheist world-view?
You'll have to define what you mean by "free will" first.
Contra-causal arguments for free will are meaningless
arguments. They start out with certain nefarious statements that, the
proponents say, don't need to be looked at too closely. Arguments about
how bad it would be if one did not have free will are one classic example.
>If chemical reactions are the casual agents, then how can you explain a
>chemical being able to cause a biological organism to think about and
>then decide to compute formulas such as the Hodge Conjecture or the
>orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2?
Physical reactions lead to chemical reactions, which lead in
turn to biological reactions, which in turn lead to processes of
mentation in the brain. There's no denying that decision-making is and
can be mediated by chemistry, otherwise various mind-altering drugs
would not work. Chemical upset is an underlying cause of depression;
chemical response can mediate depression. And so on.
If you cannot imagine how mere chemistry can lead thought, try
harder. Most people cannot imagine how the mere motion of tinkertoys
can do mathematics, but people have built simple calculating machines
out of tinkertoys.
So, IAW, tell us what you mean by "free will." How do you
define it? If by "free will" you mean that all decision-making
processes are governed by an uncaused mechanism, you'll have to show us
how that uncaused mechanism contributes to the decision and the how and
why of it reaching that decision (i.e., you'll have to show us the
"cause" in that uncaused mechanism); if you can't, then it is
indistinguishable from a completely random process anyway and it falls
into the naturalistic framework.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg
Thoughtful science fiction and fantasy:
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
"Richard" <ric...@nospam.edu> wrote in message
news:9Bn69.185240$L02.8...@news1.west.cox.net...
>
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:pVk69.107585$sA3.2...@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net...
> >
> And how can you
> > say "physics is not deterministic" in an absolute sense? Intel makes 10
> > million CPU"s per year that all operate upon principles of physics.
>
> Those CPUs are not perfect, but are carefully designed to still operate
> provided certain error tolerances are still being met. For example,
> for individual transistors on a chip, you may have a situation
> where a voltage of 0.7 Volts plus or minus a possible error of 0.3 Volts
> is sufficient to represent an "on" state.
Working as designed. According to Heisenberg, the larger the system, the
more infinitely its state can be defined. Here, you are getting smaller and
smaller. The larger system, your computer, works accordingly.
If the vast majority
> of transistors are within that error tolerance, the CPU functions.
>
> >All
> > these chips function according to determined design.
>
> All? Sorry that's wrong.
Ok, you've now completely discarded the argument to start arguing the
breakdown of an analogy. Your entire argument was one massive slippery
slope fallacy beginning with this red herring. I know that some chips are
defective. But the defective chips have *nothing* to do with heisenberg!!!
The engineers that design the chips using CAD Engineering software, when
constructed according to the engineering diagrams will function precisely as
expected. If you know much about the manufacturing process, you would know
that Heisengberg is not a worry whatsoever for the finance department in
regard to manufacturing defects. lmao. Cmon my friend. Get back to the
issue. WHy do atheists so often duck questions and focus on unrelated
strawmen?
A certain percentage of chips are always
> defective (that percentage can be quite high depending on the device
> in question). Needless to say, the chips are tested before leaving
> the factory. The terminology that gets used is chip YIELD.
> If you were a student of electrical engineering, you'd end up
> studying this as a part of your course work. In fact, here are
> some course notes if you're curious -
oh, how nice. Look, you even gave me some "course work." lol. Thats so
sweet. Now where's your work regarding the question of freewill or is it in
your nature to just argue everything even when there is no intention on my
part to argue. However, I would rather read someone's own words than
reference a hyperlink. And, btw, Heisenberg was no where to be seen in your
"course work." So here is your giant slippery slope in summary:
Argue Heisenbergs principle does not allow for determination in science
which (somehow) explains freewil (still waiting for you to do so)
I demonstrate that there is plenty of determination in science, and offer an
example that when computer chips are constructed properly according to
design, they function as expected with a high degree of predictability.
You respond by citing that faults in the manufacturing process which causes
defects somehow (??) proves that the design of a computer chip cannot be
relied upon to predict a given result --???
Then this somehow therefore proves that Heisenbergs principle was the blame
for those defects.
That therefore Heisenberg is the explanation for freewill?
Wow, that was a classic textbook slippery slope.
> http://courses.ece.uiuc.edu/ece482/Sup/Yield/
>
>
> > We can replicate
> > chemical/electrical stimullii that causes your heart to beat. We
determine
> > the stimulii based upon known stimulii, we then execute the stimulli and
get
> > the responses as expected. Surely the brain is no different?
> > If you are going to apply all this philosophy to a simple biological
> > chemical/electrical process, then please clarify how you connect them?
>
> Simple? Brain function is infinitely more complex than
> heart function.
So which is it? Heisenberg or no Heisenberg? You cant have it both ways.
Heisenbergs principle does not apply to complex systems.
>Individual heart cells will contract on their
> own automatically and are for the most part undifferentated.
> On the other hand, processes such as thought and perception
> depend on specific neurons interacting with other specific
> neurons in a specific pattern over a complex network.
> In
> this regard, your brain/heart comparison is like comparing
> the operation of a door bell with that of a supercomputer
> with an operating system consisting of millions of lines
> of compiled code.
I meant simple as in it is just a biological organism responding to
chemical/electrical stimulii. In all you've said so far, you still have
completely avoided my original questions.
Imagine you were faced with the task
> of trying to reproduce the source code of that supercomputer
> by simply feeding the computer data and seeing what came
> out. Needless to say, that would be an extremely time
> consuming and difficult process. That is essentially the
> kind of problem researchers face in trying to understand
> the function of the brain.
>
Yes it would. But all you seem to be doing is attacking everything I say
and In all you've said so far, you still have completely avoided my original
questions.
> That said, a lot of progress has been made.
> The areas of the brain involved with specific
> functions such as perception and thought
> have been mapped.
finally, getting to the point. Arguing red herrings is exausting. Id
rather be on subject.
> Maladies such as depression,
> psychosis and drug addiction are now becoming
> understood on a biochemical level. Behavior to
> a certain degree can be stimulated and controlled - I
> can inject you with hormones to stimulate your sexual
> desire, give you drugs to relieve anxiety and compulsive
> behavior, open your skull up and electrically stimulate
> your brain in such a way that old memories
> immediately become present in your mind.
> With regards to doing something like being
> able to perform the appropriate actions on
> your brain to make you specifically decide to
> eat three potato chips and a pickle, we're
> obviously not there yet. In regards to my
> computer analogy, such a task might be akin to
> trying to reconstruct lines 577727-6888621
> of the operating system code, lines in which
> 207 calls calls to 144 different subroutines
> are made, subroutines which in turn depend
> on calls to more basic subroutines and so forth.
Well then it sounds like that you indeed to believe that your thoughts could
be scientifically replicated.
But you still havent answered the question: do you have freewill? If so,
then how do you explain it within the context of what you just said?
>
>
> Richard
>
>
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"386sx" <38...@email.com> wrote in message
news:Xns926A418C...@130.133.1.4...
> Richard Smol wrote:
>
> > n...@nosam.com says...
> >
> >> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
> >> it even exist in the atheist world-view?
> >
> > What ABOUT free will? It's there.. it makes me answer this post, for
> > instance. It doesn't hold any specific significance to atheists in
> > general, since the only thing all atheists really agree upon is the lack
> > of belief in gods.
>
> What he's really asking is: "You don't know what free will is, therefore
> there is a God, and He's in the Bible."
>
thats what you are saying, but I haven't said that at all.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Fletch" <fle...@iinet.net.underpants.au> wrote in message
news:drbklukeaa7e6htj9...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 14 Aug 2002 06:00:16 GMT, "drchaffee" <drch...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> >Why did you include groups alt.abortion, alt.bible, and
> >alt.religion.christian, if you were merely after the opinion of atheists?
> >
>
> Obviously he ignored the weaker impulse to be mature and intelligent, and
> succumbed to the stronger impulse to be a shit-stirrer.
>
Actually there are a lot of atheists in here that do not fear honest
questions. I do understand that some people just get mad
when honest questions are asked because of their frail mental nature. I
apologize for "stirring" anyone up. I have found personally
that not being so fragile when dialoguing with people goes a long way in
learning other people's veiwpoints. In this way, we can
gain insight and understanding into differing opinions.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Fletch" <fle...@iinet.net.underpants.au> wrote in message
news:j2cklusd86asv158k...@4ax.com...
Thank you for your response. I did predict I would get responses like this.
I was beginning to get worried there for a while, but you came to the
rescue.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Herb Martin" <He...@LearnQuick.Com> wrote in message
news:vNq69.83634$Yd.39...@twister.austin.rr.com...
> > >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
it
> > >even exist in the atheist world-view?
> > >
> > >Thoughts.
> > >Decision.
> > >Action.
>
> Presuming the normal definition of free will, it cannot be
> demonstrated to exist.
>
> Quantum Uncertainty will -- perhaps -- server as an direct
> and convincing argument the Universe and all that happens
> is no pre-ordained but that in no way implies that humans
> or other creatures have any direct choice.
>
> There is however an IMPLICIT 'proof' of free will that suffices
> for most scientists on a daily basis even if they are not
> consciously aware of it.
>
> Either we have free will or we do not.
>
> If we do not, then to CHOOSE to claim that we do is not a error
> but an unavoidable consequence of the lack of a true choice.
>
> If we do have free choices, it would be an error to choose
> incorrect to claim that we have no choice.
>
> Therefore, "We have free will and make true choices." is the
> best statement we can make concerning the question.
>
> [This proof is IMPLICIT, but it works.]
>
Yes it does. I hadn't read it put that way before. Nicely stated.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Elf Sternberg" <e...@drizzle.com> wrote in message
news:1029336312.694952@yasure...
> In article <pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> writes:
>
> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
> >it even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> You'll have to define what you mean by "free will" first.
I dont know. Thats why I am asking you. Surely as an atheist (at least
most i've encountered) consider themselves rational and scientific, you've
given ample thought to this notion of "freewill." I am asking for *your*
veiw on it. I dont care about my view.
>
> Contra-causal arguments for free will are meaningless
> arguments. They start out with certain nefarious statements that, the
> proponents say, don't need to be looked at too closely.
Nefarious? like what? Why are they meaningless?
> Arguments about
> how bad it would be if one did not have free will are one classic example.
>
I never started out with this at all. I didn't even assume freewill
existed. Read my first sentence. I predicated by saying "if it exists" I
just want your opinion. Forget any "nefarious statements" i may have said
about it.
> >If chemical reactions are the casual agents, then how can you explain a
> >chemical being able to cause a biological organism to think about and
> >then decide to compute formulas such as the Hodge Conjecture or the
> >orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2?
>
> Physical reactions lead to chemical reactions, which lead in
> turn to biological reactions, which in turn lead to processes of
> mentation in the brain. There's no denying that decision-making is and
> can be mediated by chemistry, otherwise various mind-altering drugs
> would not work. Chemical upset is an underlying cause of depression;
> chemical response can mediate depression. And so on.
If all thoughts are caused by chemicals, what chemicals tell your brain that
its time to begin a long deterministic and complex formulated response to an
intellectual question? What exactly tells the chemicals "hey chemicals, its
time to tell this brain to start computing the orbital pattern of Cygnus
X-2."
>
> If you cannot imagine how mere chemistry can lead thought, try
> harder. Most people cannot imagine how the mere motion of tinkertoys
> can do mathematics, but people have built simple calculating machines
> out of tinkertoys.
>
I have. See my question above. I need clarification, which is why I am
asking you.
> So, IAW, tell us what you mean by "free will."
I dont know. I am asking you this.
> How do you
> define it?
I'm not. I want your opinion on it.
> If by "free will" you mean that all decision-making
> processes are governed by an uncaused mechanism,
I dont mean that. I want your opinion on it. Surely you have given it some
thought? (no pun intended)
>you'll have to show us
> how that uncaused mechanism contributes to the decision
Why would I show you anything? I am only asking for your opinion. Do you
have freewill or not? How do you define it? I want an atheists point of
view. I really dont care about my point of view.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
"Don Kresch" <ROT13....@npebarg.arg.getridof.com> wrote in message
news:hdjklu8hdubq36m7u...@4ax.com...
> In alt.atheism on Wed, 14 Aug 2002 02:59:33 GMT, "Ignorance Amongst
> Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> let us all know that:
> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will?
>
> It exists.
>
>
>
cool. Any elaboration?
ken...@shangrila.net
> In article <pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>,
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
> > I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> > even exist in the atheist world-view?
> >
> > Thoughts.
> > Decision.
> > Action.
> >
> > If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
> > fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
> [etc]
>
> Physics is not deterministic. Even in classical mechanics chaos theory
> applies---there is a sensitive dependence on initial conditions: arbitrarily
> small differences do not necessarily cause negligable or even small
> divergances. Add quantum mechanics to the mix, and things get even hairier.
> In other words, just knowing the inital state of a system is not enough to
> determine how that system will change over time. True randomness does exist.
>
> --
> Xaonon, EAC Chief of Mad Scientists and informal BAAWA, aa #1821, Kibo #: 1
> Visit The Nexus Of All Coolness (a.k.a. my site) at http://xaonon.cjb.net/
> "Uploading isn't a >H goal because it's one step closer to some mythical and
> unknowable perfection, but because it'll be jolly practical." -- Rich Artym
Damn! I was going to say that and you beat me to it.
quibbler
free will is not something which exclusively atheists must explain.
Theists have equal difficulties when looking at "gawd's plan" or
"omniscience" in the light of free will. But most importantly I think
that this is a scientific question. There is little doubt that the
brain is the physical thing that gives us consciousness. It is a
non-trivial problem to explain mental processes and mental causation.
> Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
I think a lot of people, including but not limited to atheists, have
reservations about free will. It is quite clear that we are
conditioned to behave in certain ways and genetically predisposed to
behave in others. In some cases we even live in environments where we
have little choice but to turn out in certain ways. The question is
whether these deterministic factors are the only thing explaining the
way we behave. Modern physical talks about non-causal events and
patterns emerging out of chaos. It could very well be that these are
mechanisms which allow the human mind to break free of a completely
deterministic chain of causal events (while still being a physical
thing of course).
>
> Thoughts.
> Decision.
> Action.
Beliefs and desires are also traditionally thrown in as the raw
material for thinking and decision making WFIW.
>
> If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
> fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
We shouldn't immediately assume that the only alternative to free will
is causal, material determinism. Not all chemical reactions may be
deterministic or at least predictable to any degree of certainty,
furnishing the illusion of free will. Interestingly determinism
itself is not a completely problem free philosophical stance anyway.
Non-determinism could just imply that classical determinism is a
flawed concept.
> Deciding to lift your
> right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical reaction
> in your brain. This is fully testable under science.
Mental causation is not an easy subject which you can explore in a
couple lines. Try looking for articles on this topic by Kim or
Armstrong.
> In theory, you could
> induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual not
> only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his hand.
Some people argued that god could have constructed us in such a way
that we want to do exactly what we were programmed to do. In that
case we would think we have free will but actually we would be wrong.
So like I say, theists as much as atheists need to account for how
they actually know that free will exists.
> Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger
yuck.
> with one pickle,
If you order it that way they'll make extra sure to hold the pickle
and put extra onions that you purposely asked them to leave off. As
Mr. Pesci observed, "They fuck you at the drive-thru!"
> 3
> dabs of ketchup
Which will promptly substitute with mustard and forget to give you any
ketchup packets for your fries. They will also forget to give you any
napkins.
> and a large half-diet half regular coke
Again, YUCK! You get none of the taste and half of the calories.
> is a completely
> measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not? In theory, by inducing
> the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be able
> to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do this.
> I have not really delved into this much, but has anyone ever tried such an
> experiment?
You don't have to do this. You can just train kids to do certain
things when they are very young and they will think they are doing
what they do out of free choice.
> Taking it one step futher, it should therefore be fully
> explainable that even your thoughts (the ones you "decide" not to act on)
> are also inducable through simply electrical/chemical stimulli
Where are we going with this Matlock?
>
> If all human thoughts and decisions are explainable completely by
> chemical/electrical reactions in the brain, then is that not arguing that
> the chemical/electrical reactions are the casual agents to those thoughts
> and decisions and not vice versa?
No. That would definitely be too hasty. It is clear that whatever
collection of phenomena is associated with consciousness has a higher
level control over these lower chemical reactions. But that does not
mean that consciousness must be a non-physical substance or that the
chemical reactions have minds of their own.
> If chemical reactions are the casual
> agents, then how can you explain a chemical being able to cause a biological
> organism to think about and then decide to compute formulas such as the
> Hodge Conjecture or the orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2?
What exactly do you want to explain about it.? It is presumably a very
complex set of reactions which represent particular thoughts to a
physical device designed to interpret those representations.
> If all thoughts
> are effected
affected
> by chemical/electrical stimulii, then what exactly, therefore,
> is the causual agent that tells the chemical/electrical processes to cause
> the thoughts that the biological organism should decide to eat 3 french
> fries, then a bite of cheeseburger, pause before taking a desired drink to
> mentally solve a problem in Visual Basic,
The chief problem of which is, "Why am I programming in Visual Basic".
> take another bite of cheeseburger,
> then take a drink?
I take it you don't think you have been conditioned by commercial
advertising and poor eating habits to like McDonald's Cheeseburgers or
conditioned by Microsoft to like programming with shitty software
packages? 8-D
> What exactly was the primary cause of those chain of
> thoughts that eventually led to the decisions that then in turn led to
> action.
Well it's not like nobody has ever pondered such issues. A great deal
of the field of cognitive psychology, AI and philosophy of mind deal
with such things. There are whole libraries devoted to such topics.
Dennett and Haugeland might be some good authors to check out for
starters.
> If merely chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts, then what
> told the chemicals "hey, now lets tell this organism that its time to solve
> the Hodge Conjecture. Ok chemicals, give him the thought, and them make him
> decide to act"
It's not like there is a one sentence answer. Many of the proposed
solutions require a radical new way of thinking about things like
intentionality and consciousness.
> ..........................
> One God
Which one?
> One Lifetime
I know, but I hear they're starting a new cable channel pretty soon
here.
> One Hope
Luke Skywalker? Or do you mean Leia or her twin Jedi children?
ken...@shangrila.net
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
To a rather large extent my, and, I imagine, everyone else's, behavior is
predictable. For example, I detest social dancing, do not do it well, and will
avoid any gathering based on it. Whether this is due to past experience,
something in my genes or a congenital heart condition doesn't really matter. To
that extent I do not really have free will. However, to carry this notion to
the extreme where even the tiniest action is predetermined necessarily requires
a plan, which in turn requires a planner, something an atheist rejects.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"quibbler" <quibb...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:115e8d4.02081...@posting.google.com...
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:<pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
> > I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will?
> I would say this is a pretty frequent question in alt.atheism, though
> free will is not something which exclusively atheists must explain.
> Theists have equal difficulties when looking at "gawd's plan" or
> "omniscience" in the light of free will.
well fortunately im not interested in the theists view.
But most importantly I think
> that this is a scientific question. There is little doubt that the
> brain is the physical thing that gives us consciousness. It is a
> non-trivial problem to explain mental processes and mental causation.
>
>
yes, i agree
> > Or does it
> > even exist in the atheist world-view?
> I think a lot of people, including but not limited to atheists, have
> reservations about free will. It is quite clear that we are
> conditioned to behave in certain ways and genetically predisposed to
> behave in others. In some cases we even live in environments where we
> have little choice but to turn out in certain ways. The question is
> whether these deterministic factors are the only thing explaining the
> way we behave. Modern physical talks about non-causal events and
> patterns emerging out of chaos. It could very well be that these are
> mechanisms which allow the human mind to break free of a completely
> deterministic chain of causal events (while still being a physical
> thing of course).
I understand your point. But at what level is this humand mind "breaking
free?" If we look at the physical processes of the brain,
do we not see the following: (where C/ES is defined as chemical/electrical
stimulii
C/ES---> thoughts ----> C/ES ---> decision ---->C /ES----->action
where exactly does this 'chaos' take place, and if it does, why am i able to
make decisions that i can fully predict, determine, and repeat?
>
> >
> > Thoughts.
> > Decision.
> > Action.
> Beliefs and desires are also traditionally thrown in as the raw
> material for thinking and decision making WFIW.
>
> >
> > If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions
are
> > fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
> We shouldn't immediately assume that the only alternative to free will
> is causal, material determinism. Not all chemical reactions may be
> deterministic or at least predictable to any degree of certainty,
> furnishing the illusion of free will.
Then from what you are saying, the proposition of either freewill or
determinism comits the fallacy of the excluded middle. Interesting.
Please, what is the "middle" then you refer to?
If freewill is merely an illusion then how could the alternative not be
determinism? Even if random events are causing the thoughts, the thoughts
themselves may not be predetermined but the actions they produce are, since
every action is determined by a decision.
Interestingly determinism
> itself is not a completely problem free philosophical stance anyway.
> Non-determinism could just imply that classical determinism is a
> flawed concept.
> > > Deciding to lift your
> > right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical
reaction
> > in your brain. This is fully testable under science.
> Mental causation is not an easy subject which you can explore in a
> couple lines. Try looking for articles on this topic by Kim or
> Armstrong.
>
if you give me a link, ill read it.
> > In theory, you could
> > induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual not
> > only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his hand.
> Some people argued that god could have constructed us in such a way
> that we want to do exactly what we were programmed to do. In that
> case we would think we have free will but actually we would be wrong.
> So like I say, theists as much as atheists need to account for how
> they actually know that free will exists.
but i am not interested in the theistic view. i really dont care right now.
Atheists have ideas about the universe independent of what a theist thinks
(at least I hope that is the case!). I am just trying to understand the
general atheist point of view- if such a general one exists. I'll save the
theistic view for another thread.
>
>
> > Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger
> yuck.
hey! those are yummy
> > with one pickle,
> If you order it that way they'll make extra sure to hold the pickle
> and put extra onions that you purposely asked them to leave off. As
> Mr. Pesci observed, "They fuck you at the drive-thru!"
> > 3
> > dabs of ketchup
> Which will promptly substitute with mustard and forget to give you any
> ketchup packets for your fries. They will also forget to give you any
> napkins.
>
> > and a large half-diet half regular coke
> Again, YUCK! You get none of the taste and half of the calories.
well what do you recommend? Burger King? (blech)
>
> > is a completely
> > measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not? In theory, by
inducing
> > the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be
able
> > to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do this.
> > I have not really delved into this much, but has anyone ever tried such
an
> > experiment?
> You don't have to do this. You can just train kids to do certain
> things when they are very young and they will think they are doing
> what they do out of free choice.
oh, so now you are arguing that being "brainwashed" means that an individual
is no longer making choices? How can you say this? I know that a lot of
psychologist think this, which is why murderers like the menendez brothers
can be aquitted. But I fail to see how this can be since all
chemical/electrical stimulii are generated within the biological organism
and not induced externally. Maybe the child isnt *consciously* aware of
the choice, but its a choice nontheless...or is it not?
>
> > Taking it one step futher, it should therefore be fully
> > explainable that even your thoughts (the ones you "decide" not to act
on)
> > are also inducable through simply electrical/chemical stimulli
> Where are we going with this Matlock?
i dont know. im going home in a few hours.
Because visual basic.net is a killer language that I am good at, and I do
not know C.
>
> > take another bite of cheeseburger,
> > then take a drink?
> I take it you don't think you have been conditioned by commercial
> advertising and poor eating habits to like McDonald's Cheeseburgers or
> conditioned by Microsoft to like programming with shitty software
> packages? 8-D
>
>
> > What exactly was the primary cause of those chain of
> > thoughts that eventually led to the decisions that then in turn led to
> > action.
> Well it's not like nobody has ever pondered such issues. A great deal
> of the field of cognitive psychology, AI and philosophy of mind deal
> with such things. There are whole libraries devoted to such topics.
> Dennett and Haugeland might be some good authors to check out for
> starters.
>
> > If merely chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts, then what
> > told the chemicals "hey, now lets tell this organism that its time to
solve
> > the Hodge Conjecture. Ok chemicals, give him the thought, and them make
him
> > decide to act"
> It's not like there is a one sentence answer. Many of the proposed
> solutions require a radical new way of thinking about things like
> intentionality and consciousness.
>
a darn good response. Thorough and honest. I hope i see good responses
like this from other atheists.
quibbler
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> > even exist in the atheist world-view?
> >
> only one). I am agnostic, but I agree with you on this point. If life is
> just an extension of nature and all events in nature are the results of
> other events going all the way back to the big bang, then without a god,
> IMHO life doesn't have free will.
While free will may in fact not exist, free will itself does not
require a god. Only non-deterministic mechanisms are required. Why
do you think that these non-deterministic elements must be a
traditonal theistic god? Have you thought about what causal
explanations really are? They are really just abstractions which
allow us to predict future states. Whole chains of "causal" events
can be organized together to explain some future state. But that
does not mean that future events are only the result of some causal
chain. Also, I don't see how god really explains all of this, or how
we would explain god. If god doesn't need explanation then other
non-deterministic events don't either.
> Just because we can't calculate all the
> variables that go into a toss of the dice doesn't mean that the result
> wasn't predetermined from the time they left the players hand, or even
> earlier.
No, but you pick an example which may be deterministic. Do you not
believe that there are non-deterministic events?
> Brian
> Chose freedom, reject religion
I sympathize with the sentiment, but this is like in the Rush song
where they say, "I will choose free will". Doesn't the ability to
choose imply that you already have what you are supposedly "choosing"?
Now I suppose that what you might be suggesting is that one should
not be like religious people and freely choose to be slaves. But even
those folks don't completely give up their freedom as much as try to
suppress it.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
<ken...@shangrila.net> wrote in message
news:3D5A8734...@bellatlantic.net...
desires and choice, though related, do not necessarily imply each other.
you detest social dancing, yet you have
the ability to choose to do it anyway.
Jake
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's wrote:
>
>
> "386sx" <38...@email.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns926A418C...@130.133.1.4...
> > Richard Smol wrote:
> >
> > > n...@nosam.com says...
> > >
> > >> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
> > >> it even exist in the atheist world-view?
> > >
> > > What ABOUT free will? It's there.. it makes me answer this post, for
> > > instance. It doesn't hold any specific significance to atheists in
> > > general, since the only thing all atheists really agree upon is the lack
> > > of belief in gods.
> >
> > What he's really asking is: "You don't know what free will is, therefore
> > there is a God, and He's in the Bible."
> >
> thats what you are saying, but I haven't said that at all.
Oh you've said it. Not in those exact words, of course, but that's the
whole point of this thread, as affirmed by your ridiculous crossposting.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"drchaffee" <drch...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:Qlm69.31031$eb.22...@news2.west.cox.net...
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> > I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> > even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> The first thing to understand, in my opinion, is that atheism simply means
> without belief in god(s). It doesn't mean theist hater, or religion hater,
> or Christian hater. The second thing to understand is that atheism doesn't
> speak to the free-will conjecture. Atheists have a wide variety of beliefs
> in this area (or not!).
yes, but since most atheists in my experience (claim anyway) to be
scientific and rational means that such a question as to the existence of
freewill is surely something that any well-thought out atheist has
considered- is it not?. If you are well-thought out in your position, then
surely at some time you have contemplated this notion of freewill- or have
you never even given serious thought to the matter? I am assuming that
most atheists who claim to be intellectually grounded have granted
consideration to this topic, but since I am not an atheist, I could be
wrong. Perhaps there are atheists who have never even given thought to this
issue and yet claim to be well-thought out. Who knows.
>
> I am a determinist (undeniable cause and effect)
yes, this point of view I have noticed varies amongst atheists.
> and a materialist (purely
> physical universe - no special mental goop)
better stated as naturalism. This is as universal in atheism as belief that
Jesus saves in christianity. Sure there may be some that disagree, but few
and far between.
>and a relativist (at least in
> some respects).
I have yet to meet an atheist that is an absolutist. If such a creature
exists, I'd love to speak with him/her.
There are plenty of atheists who will point to chaos theory
> or quantum mechanics to find an excuse for free-will.
Yes. they have done so in this thread. However not one of them elaborated.
You are elaborating, which by default makes your response superior to theirs
as far as I'm concerned. Saying "heisenberg made me do it" without
explaining how this is possible is a poor answer to a question. I
appreciate your response thus far.
For me, randomness
> merely means unplanned or unavoidable ignorance - it doesn't imply an
> inconsistent reality. (Nor does it necessitate a consistent reality - but
I
> lean that way due to the luke-warm success of science.) The raindrop hits
a
> particular chunk of sidewalk for a reason - not because of someone's plan,
> or "chance", but through cause and effect in accordance with physical laws
> (to the extent we can claim to know them).
Ok. I'm with you so far...
>
> I don't believe free-will is compatible with an omniscient being. Then
> again, I don't believe in free-will or an omniscient being, so it's
academic
> for me.
Ok. However I dont care about a theistic point of view. I want to know an
atheists point of view.
Free-will, if presuming more under the hood than "chance", typically
> resorts to postulating the existence of an immaterial soul.
I agree with this. When one argues that thoughts are immaterial, then that
is the path to arguing that man has a soul. But if thoughts are material,
then they should not only be measurable, but externally induced, am I wrong
here?
In a discussion
> of the existence of God, this free-will angle is ubiquitous.
I am not discussing that, however, and do not want to in this thread. I'd
rather learn the atheist viewpoint, which (should- I hope) exist independent
of anything a theist might think.
It is
> question-begging from my point of view.
how so?
Anyhow, I hope this has answered
> your question.
A decent response, better than others I got. Thanks.
>
> Why did you include groups alt.abortion, alt.bible, and
> alt.religion.christian, if you were merely after the opinion of atheists?
I believe dialoge is helpful to all. If people can talk reasonably then
theists and atheists alike may be able to gain insight into this question.
Because it is a question theists have as well. and those NG are filled with
atheist/theist posts.
>
> >
> > Thoughts.
> > Decision.
> > Action.
> >
> > If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions
are
> > fully explained through stricly chemical reactions. Deciding to lift
> your
> > right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical
reaction
> > in your brain. This is fully testable under science. In theory, you
> could
> > induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual not
> > only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his hand.
> > Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger with one pickle,
3
> > dabs of ketchup and a large half-diet half regular coke is a completely
> > measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not? In theory, by
> inducing
> > the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be
able
> > to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do this.
> > I have not really delved into this much, but has anyone ever tried such
an
> > experiment? Taking it one step futher, it should therefore be fully
> > explainable that even your thoughts (the ones you "decide" not to act
on)
> > are also inducable through simply electrical/chemical stimulli
> >
> > If all human thoughts and decisions are explainable completely by
> > chemical/electrical reactions in the brain, then is that not arguing
that
> > the chemical/electrical reactions are the casual agents to those
thoughts
> > and decisions and not vice versa? If chemical reactions are the casual
> > agents, then how can you explain a chemical being able to cause a
> biological
> > organism to think about and then decide to compute formulas such as the
> > Hodge Conjecture or the orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2? If all
thoughts
> > are effected by chemical/electrical stimulii, then what exactly,
> therefore,
> > is the causual agent that tells the chemical/electrical processes to
cause
> > the thoughts that the biological organism should decide to eat 3 french
> > fries, then a bite of cheeseburger, pause before taking a desired drink
to
> > mentally solve a problem in Visual Basic, take another bite of
> cheeseburger,
> > then take a drink? What exactly was the primary cause of those chain of
> > thoughts that eventually led to the decisions that then in turn led to
> > action. If merely chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts, then
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Jim Cowling" <bigk...@pscowling.net> wrote in message
news:wim69.138637$v53.7...@news3.calgary.shaw.ca...
> In article <vLl69.125088$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>, "Ignorance
Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Incorrect.
> >
> >How? Which part is incorrect- the part about man being only physical or
the
> >part about thoughts being chemical (add electrical). Whatever is wrong,
> >please by all means make it right and explain it! Thats why I am here,
so
> >you can enlighten me
>
> Others have explained it better in this thread.
>
> There is no set path for transmissions through the brain's neural network;
the
> path any transmission can take is more-or-less random, in much the same
way
> that dropping a ball bearing through a pachinko machine will give you
random
> results.
Then why are my thoughts controllable?
I can decide what I am going to do at a specific time, or even decide to
make a decision about an unknown decision at a specific time in a specific
place?
> Plus, the brain is constantly restructuring itself as cells die and are
> replaced (it has been shown that the old saw about brain cells never
> regenerating is false). The means by which cells are replaced and when is
not
> predictable -- in more or less the same way that you can't know exactly
when a
> cut will heal.
but I can fully control and predict my decisions if I want to. Am I the
only one that can do this? Surely I am not superhuman. I am under the
assumptions that others can do this as well. How does this deterministic
ability regarding my decisions fit in to this chaos theory of yours?
>
> In any case, it's not merely chemical, or even electrical; it's a
> variable-path neural network with true randomness.
true randomness? You just formulated a complex deterministic response to my
question. It didn't look like a random pattern to me. Where exactly is
this true randomness taking place that you speak of?
>
> In the final analysis, though, we don't know precisely how the brain
works,
> but we do know it's not a predictable chemical engine.
how do we know this? Has someone shown this to be true?
>
> That said, how do I know I have free will? Because I decided to write this
> message. And now I'll go grab a diet cola from the fridge. Since there's
no
> evidence that any outside agency has commanded me to do these things, I
must
> assume that I'm doing them because I want to.
Deterministic action based upon premeditated thought. But didnt you just
say your thoughts were governed by randomness?
>
> And, to paraphrase an earlier quote: even if we don't have free will, we
think
> we do, so does it matter?
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
. And now I'll go grab a diet cola from the fridge. Since there's no
> evidence that any outside agency has commanded me to do these things, I
must
> assume that I'm doing them because I want to.
btw, good choice. I am enjoying a cold diet coke now.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
"Brian" <bcrou...@netcarrier.com> wrote in message
news:wFm69.621$1J3.52...@news.netcarrier.net...
>
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:2Ql69.4864$983.13572@rwcrnsc53...
> >
> >
> > .
> >
> > "Brian" <bcrou...@netcarrier.com> wrote in message
> > news:oKl69.620$1H3.52...@news.netcarrier.net...
> > >
> > > "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> > > news:pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> > > > I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or
does
> it
> > > > even exist in the atheist world-view?
> > > >
> > > I've been thinking about this question for some time (I thought I was
> the
> > > only one). I am agnostic, but I agree with you on this point. If life
is
> > > just an extension of nature and all events in nature are the results
of
> > > other events going all the way back to the big bang, then without a
god,
> > > IMHO life doesn't have free will. Just because we can't calculate all
> the
> > > variables that go into a toss of the dice doesn't mean that the result
> > > wasn't predetermined from the time they left the players hand, or even
> > > earlier.
> > >
> > > Brian
> > > Chose freedom, reject religion
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Thank you Brian. You are the first person to finally give an opinion
that
> > has meaning. I appreciate this. I hope that you will permit me to ask
> you
> > a few questions.
> >
> > If free-will does not exist (and I understand how you reached that
> > conclusion), then what caused the chemical/electrical stimulii that
> "forced"
> > you to formulate a complex, deterministic response to my question?
> > Something had to initiate the process in which your neural pathways
> > triggered your forced response, or do you think the chemical/electrical
> > stimulii was uncaused?
>
> I'm not sure I understand your first question. The obvious answer would
be -
> your original post was the cause of the chemical/electrical stimulii that
> "forced" me to formulate a complex, deterministic response to your
question.
> Is that what your lookin for?
Your opinion is what I'm looking for.
my post perhaps caused a desire for you to respond, but did it force you?
Could you not have chosen to resist the impulse to do something? Did my
post merely illicit an impulse or is it actually the causual agent that
forced the response, including the sentences and the wording?
>
> > Regardless, if your thoughts were caused by physical
> > forces, therefore you think that it is feasible to scientifically
"induce"
> > the exact same thoughts?
> >
> In the same person, yes.
>
>
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Jim Cowling" <bigk...@pscowling.net> wrote in message
news:6lm69.143743$Ag2.7...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
> In article <oKl69.620$1H3.52...@news.netcarrier.net>, "Brian"
<bcrou...@netcarrier.com> wrote:
> >
> >I've been thinking about this question for some time (I thought I was the
> >only one). I am agnostic, but I agree with you on this point. If life is
> >just an extension of nature and all events in nature are the results of
> >other events going all the way back to the big bang, then without a god,
> >IMHO life doesn't have free will. Just because we can't calculate all the
> >variables that go into a toss of the dice doesn't mean that the result
> >wasn't predetermined from the time they left the players hand, or even
> >earlier.
>
> I disagree with this, because the universe is not perfectly causal. I'm a
firm
> believer in chaos theory; in complex systems, no result can be perfectly
> predicted.
I am typing on a keyboard in outlook express 5.5. I predict that, when I
click "SEND" in my outlook express, that this message will be posted to a
newsgroup.
Lets see what happens.
As such, if the "tape" of the universe was rewound and replayed,
> the song might be different this time around.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
"Brian" <bcrou...@netcarrier.com> wrote in message
news:6Pm69.622$KK3.52...@news.netcarrier.net...
>
> "Jim Cowling" <bigk...@pscowling.net> wrote in message
> news:6lm69.143743$Ag2.7...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
> > In article <oKl69.620$1H3.52...@news.netcarrier.net>, "Brian"
> <bcrou...@netcarrier.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >I've been thinking about this question for some time (I thought I was
the
> > >only one). I am agnostic, but I agree with you on this point. If life
is
> > >just an extension of nature and all events in nature are the results of
> > >other events going all the way back to the big bang, then without a
god,
> > >IMHO life doesn't have free will. Just because we can't calculate all
the
> > >variables that go into a toss of the dice doesn't mean that the result
> > >wasn't predetermined from the time they left the players hand, or even
> > >earlier.
> >
> > I disagree with this, because the universe is not perfectly causal. I'm
a
> firm
> > believer in chaos theory; in complex systems, no result can be perfectly
> > predicted. As such, if the "tape" of the universe was rewound and
> replayed,
> > the song might be different this time around.
> >
> > --
> > Spamblock: There is no 'p' in my address.
>
> I'm not well versed in chaos theory, but it seems to me that either all is
> predetermined or none is. If we can make a machine as complex as a
Tomahawk
> missile and it hits it's intended target most of the time, then it's clear
> that physics acts in predictable ways. The ones that didn't hit their
> intended targets can be attributed to unforseen physical influences.
Yes. The ones that dont hit their target are usually due to mechanical
engineering flaws that have nothing to do with Heisenberg.
>
>
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
Elf Sternberg
>> What do you mean by "free will?"
>I dont know.
Obviously you do have _some_ idea or you wouldn't be arguing
about it.
>> Contra-causal arguments for free will are meaningless
>> arguments. They start out with certain nefarious statements that, the
>> proponents say, don't need to be looked at too closely.
>Nefarious? like what? Why are they meaningless?
>If all thoughts are caused by chemicals, what chemicals tell your brain
>that its time to begin a long deterministic and complex formulated
>response to an intellectual question?
We don't know. How's that for an answer? But we are
discovering what chemicals start the process that leads to the
impression, "I'm hungry," or "I'm tired," or "I'm angry." We can note
that there is a pure and causal line process from the introduction of a
chemical to the response of more biochemical processes that ultimately
lead to nerves firing and the reporting of hunger, or exhaustion, or
anger.
If we don't have "free will," it mean we are "controlled." But
"control" has a very distinct definition: "control" means that Agent A
can force Agent B into states that Agent B is capable of and Agent A
desires. Unless someone can demonstrate that there is someone "out
there" controlling our every move then we have, by default, free will.
Don Kresch
Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> let us all know that:
>
>
>
>"Don Kresch" <ROT13....@npebarg.arg.getridof.com> wrote in message
>news:hdjklu8hdubq36m7u...@4ax.com...
>> In alt.atheism on Wed, 14 Aug 2002 02:59:33 GMT, "Ignorance Amongst
>> Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> let us all know that:
>> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will?
>>
>> It exists.
>>
>>
>>
>cool. Any elaboration?
I don't see how any is needed.
Iain
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> Decision.
> Action.
The same way a postman explains free will: there is no one way because
postal worker isn't a religion. Nor is atheism.
However, IMO....
Firstly, it depends what you mean by free will. If anything, people who are
constituants of psychological tribal power units such as religions, tend to
have inherantly less of what I understand to be "free will".
You seem to think that self-sufficient complexity(ie, a brain of an
organism), is impossable without intelligent control. That is just nonsense.
How does being a theist make explaining "free will" any easier?
Free will is an illusion. When ancient peoples saw clouds moving, they
didn't know the mechanics of what caused it, so they assumed an intelligent
force behind it.
We lack understanding of the brain, and see only it's results, so again some
assume intelligent, magical forces at work.
Thomas P.
<no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>
>"Thomas P." <ton...@get2spamnet.dk> wrote in message
>news:3d5a4b85...@nyheder.get2net.dk...
>> On Wed, 14 Aug 2002 05:15:13 GMT, "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's"
>> <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >"Thomas P." <ton...@get2spamnet.dk> wrote in message
>> >news:3d59e2e5...@nyheder.get2net.dk...
>> >> On Wed, 14 Aug 2002 02:59:33 GMT, "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's"
>> >> <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
>it
>> >> >even exist in the atheist world-view?
>> >>
>> >> I don't see any reason why their should be an atheist view of free
>> >> will. Just like among theists, some atheists believe in it and some
>> >> don't - for a variety of reasons. Paraphrasing Isaac Bashevis Singer,
>> >> I believe there is no such thing as free will, but that we have to
>> >> live as if there were; because we have no choice.
>> >
>> >then all your thoughts could be induced, right? Are they caused? What
>> >biological chemical function, then, told your brain to formulate a
>> >continuous complicated deterministic response to my question? Random
>> >events?
>>
>> I haven't the slightest idea.
>>
>>
>surely you have an opinion on whether or not you have freewill??? I'm just
>interested in opinions.
Apparently not, since I gave you my opinion already.
>>
>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Thomas P.
>> >>
>> >> "Men go and come, but earth abides."
>> >
>> >
>>
>> Thomas P.
>>
>> "Men go and come, but earth abides."
>
>
Thomas P.
"Men go and come, but earth abides."
Iain
"Ray Fischer" <rfis...@newbolt.sonic.net> wrote in message
news:ajcnqn$rq7$1...@newbolt.sonic.net...
> Ignorance Amongst Whitey's <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> >even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> atheist) then there is no "free will". Time is an illusion and we
> travel along it just like driving a car along a highway.
>
Rubbish. I'm sure Einstien was aware that it is is lexicographically
impossible to travel through time. "Travel" is a difference in spacial
position of an object between two or more points along a time axis.
Therefore conciousness, or thinking, is simply a difference in brain state
along time. Nothing has to move along time in order for time to seem to
"pass".
Craig Pennington
belief in a personal god.]
> he was a deist. thats not a strong atheist at all, because it is not an
> atheist.
He was not a deist in any standard sense. That is, he did not believe in a god
who acted out of will or goal, even to create.
"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a
will of the kind that we experience in ourselves." _The World As I See It_
"The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility
of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling
that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme
that is manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the
step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who makes
demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this
neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being."
from _Albert Einstein: The Human Side_
"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a
childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading
spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act
of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I
prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our
intellectual understanding of nature and of our being."
In a letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., September 28, 1949
So I'd say that Einstein was far closer to the position of most atheists that I
know than he was to any religious position which draws its authority from the
existence of any kind of god, even a deistic one. If he is on the theist side of
the line, it is only barely. Certainly the distance between his postion and that
of most atheists in my experience is far less than the distance between it and
that of any believer in an interventionist god. And Einstein flatly rejected the
idea of gods having anything to do with morality. So pretty much anything
believed in by all but the most liberal modern theologeons is rejected by
Einstein.
Cheers,
Craig
--
Corollary to Clarke's Third Law:
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently
advanced.
Mr. Motes
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:Itw69.116732
> Then why are my thoughts controllable?
> I can decide what I am going to do at a specific time, or even decide to
> make a decision about an unknown decision at a specific time in a specific
> place?
How do you know your thougths are controllable. How could you possibly
know?
Free will is an illusion, in my opinion. Our innabilty to precisely predict
our actions gives us the illusion of free will.
We can't predict the weather, but nobody supposes the weather has free will.
We can't predict human action either. So why must there be free-will?
Aren't there fatalist, determinist Christians who reject free will as well,
like Calvinists?
How do you explaing your supposed free will? God gave it to you? That
explains nothing, cerainly far less than other human attempts to explain
things: like science, philosophy, etc.
What makes you think that just because humans don't know everything there
must be a god? Monkeys know even less about the universe than we do. Are
they even better proof of a god? Or does their ignorance somehow pove human
existence?
As for Heisenberg, i was under the impression that the uncertainty priciple
was more about our inability to measure certain things accurately, not
neccesarily about those certain things actually being random.
Mr. Motes
Mike Ruskai
>I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
>even exist in the atheist world-view?
Free will either exists or doesn't in reality. It's not something that
exists (except as a concept) in a world view.
We don't know enough about how complex brains actually function to answer
that question.
It all boils down to how much is deterministic, and how much stochastic.
Either way, the traditional definition of free will clearly doesn't hold.
Whatever the combination of governing laws, the physical makeup of our
brain will determine what decisions we make.
>Thoughts.
>Decision.
>Action.
>
>If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
>fully explained through stricly chemical reactions. Deciding to lift your
>right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical reaction
>in your brain. This is fully testable under science. In theory, you could
>induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual not
>only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his hand.
I have no doubt that such an experiment is possible in principle.
>Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger with one pickle, 3
>dabs of ketchup and a large half-diet half regular coke is a completely
>measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not? In theory, by inducing
>the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be able
>to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do this.
Yes. You'd be replacing normal internal and external stimuli, and
circumventing whatever path they normally would take to result in a
decision. You'd be demonstrating a shortcut, but not normal
functionality.
>I have not really delved into this much, but has anyone ever tried such an
>experiment? Taking it one step futher, it should therefore be fully
>explainable that even your thoughts (the ones you "decide" not to act on)
>are also inducable through simply electrical/chemical stimulli
I don't think the term "simply" belongs. Replacing parts of the brain
wholesale would probably be required to get physical access to thought
creation. It's not as if you can just stick a wire in somewhere and up
the voltage.
>If all human thoughts and decisions are explainable completely by
>chemical/electrical reactions in the brain, then is that not arguing that
>the chemical/electrical reactions are the casual agents to those thoughts
>and decisions and not vice versa? If chemical reactions are the casual
>agents, then how can you explain a chemical being able to cause a biological
>organism to think about and then decide to compute formulas such as the
>Hodge Conjecture or the orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2? If all thoughts
>are effected by chemical/electrical stimulii, then what exactly, therefore,
>is the causual agent that tells the chemical/electrical processes to cause
>the thoughts that the biological organism should decide to eat 3 french
>fries, then a bite of cheeseburger, pause before taking a desired drink to
>mentally solve a problem in Visual Basic, take another bite of cheeseburger,
>then take a drink? What exactly was the primary cause of those chain of
>thoughts that eventually led to the decisions that then in turn led to
>action. If merely chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts, then what
>told the chemicals "hey, now lets tell this organism that its time to solve
>the Hodge Conjecture. Ok chemicals, give him the thought, and them make him
>decide to act"
You're making the mistake that there has to be a motivational cause in
there somewhere. The laws of physics simply are. There's no "why" to
them (outside of completely speculative cosmology).
>One God
>One Lifetime
>One Hope
Two out of three ain't bad.
--
- Mike
Remove 'spambegone.net' and reverse to send e-mail.
Mr. Motes
> Why did you include groups alt.abortion, alt.bible, and
> alt.religion.christian, if you were merely after the opinion of atheists?
Because in all liklihood he's an ID troll. But then again there's no free
will, so he had choice...
Mr. Motes
dummie
<snip>
AQOTM begin:
> Physical reactions lead to chemical reactions, which lead in
> turn to biological reactions, which in turn lead to processes of
> mentation in the brain. There's no denying that decision-making is and
> can be mediated by chemistry, otherwise various mind-altering drugs
> would not work. Chemical upset is an underlying cause of depression;
> chemical response can mediate depression. And so on.
>
> If you cannot imagine how mere chemistry can lead thought, try
> harder. Most people cannot imagine how the mere motion of tinkertoys
> can do mathematics, but people have built simple calculating machines
> out of tinkertoys.
end.
I give it an A+ for its purity. Who else thinks we should archive it?
Craig Pennington
> I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> even exist in the atheist world-view?
I speak only for myself, atheism isn't a world view.
I don't think the concept of free will is a meaningful or useful one.
> Thoughts.
> Decision.
> Action.
> If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
> fully explained through stricly chemical reactions. Deciding to lift your
> right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical reaction
> in your brain. This is fully testable under science.
Most of what we do, such as breath, blink, sneeze, raise our hand from a hot
burner we do automatically.
> In theory, you could
> induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual not
> only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his hand.
Yep.
> Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger with one pickle, 3
> dabs of ketchup and a large half-diet half regular coke is a completely
> measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not?
Measurable? Within the limits of measurement, I suppose.
> In theory, by inducing
> the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be able
> to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do this.
Yep.
> I have not really delved into this much, but has anyone ever tried such an
> experiment?
Not at this level, I don't believe. One experiment I remember reading about
was one where patients in whose brains electrodes had been placed were put
in a room with a slide projector and a control. They were told they could
advance the slides using the control. In fact, the control was a dummy,
what advanced the slide was brain activity. The subjects reported the
sensation that the slide projector had anticipated their decision before
they had actually made it. Hmmm, a quick google turns this interesting
paper <http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/time&obs.htm> which makes
reference to the experimint near the end. Gray Walter, 1963.
Also, there are reports of the stimulation of various parts of the brain
during surgery triggering or inhibiting sensations or reactions. Another
google turns up this interesting article:
<http://www.mahidol.ac.th/mahidol/spectrum/page4a_vol8_no2.htm> which
talks about the use of this property to map functional areas suring
surgery.
> Taking it one step futher, it should therefore be fully
> explainable that even your thoughts (the ones you "decide" not to act on)
> are also inducable through simply electrical/chemical stimulli
Sure. Remembering, though, that the brain is a very complicated organ, and
understanding it at this level may not be practical.
> If all human thoughts and decisions are explainable completely by
> chemical/electrical reactions in the brain, then is that not arguing that
> the chemical/electrical reactions are the casual agents to those thoughts
> and decisions and not vice versa?
Not causal, but identical -- part of the very process itself.
> If chemical reactions are the casual
> agents, then how can you explain a chemical being able to cause a biological
> organism to think about and then decide to compute formulas such as the
> Hodge Conjecture or the orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2?
The biological organism's thoughts and decisions are the chemical reactions,
one doesn't cause the other.
> If all thoughts
> are effected by chemical/electrical stimulii, then what exactly, therefore,
> is the causual agent that tells the chemical/electrical processes to cause
> the thoughts that the biological organism should decide to eat 3 french
> fries, then a bite of cheeseburger, pause before taking a desired drink to
> mentally solve a problem in Visual Basic, take another bite of cheeseburger,
> then take a drink? What exactly was the primary cause of those chain of
> thoughts that eventually led to the decisions that then in turn led to
> action.
The chemical reactions don't cause the biological organism to make decisions,
they are the biological organism making decisions; so your question boils
down to what causes chemical reactions to occur as they do.
> If merely chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts, then what
> told the chemicals "hey, now lets tell this organism that its time to solve
> the Hodge Conjecture. Ok chemicals, give him the thought, and them make him
> decide to act"
I wouldn't say that ``chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts;'' rather
that the chemical reactions were those thoughts happening.
Bill Thacker
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
>even exist in the atheist world-view?
In mine, it does not exist. Free will is an illusion. Our minds make
decisions via electrochemical calculations (look up "Neural networks"
on the web). When focused on a problem, the mind creates a sort of
balance (like you use to compare weights), weighing in all factors
relevent to the decision. When the factors clearly favor one choice,
we make the decision so easily that we call it "a no-brainer". When
the balance is close to even, we sense indecision; we try to find
additional factors to tip the scales, and when we reach a decision
we feel that we "thought it out".
The illusion of free will comes because these factors are so many
and so complex, and because some of them are not apparent to us.
In your McDonald's example, the reason you decide to have a bit of
cheeseburger, then a drink, is that your stomach, taste buds, and
other eating apparatus send signals to your brain indicating thirst,
hunger, a desire for salt, etc. When the thirst signal (which comes
partly from your body hydration level and partly from the wetness
level of your mouth) becomes strongest, you take a drink. When all
are about equal, you do them more-or-less at random without thinking,
because millenia of evolution have given us the instinct to eat
quickly before something takes it away from us. You don't waste time
thinking about what to eat next when all options are equally
desirable.
Here's an experiment. Have someone watch you eat someetime
when you don't expect it, and record each bite in order. Look
at the data for trends, factoring in the size of each bite. I
project you'll see a trend at the beginning, indicating what your
body craves most, then fairly random behavior for the remainder of the
meal.
So, our minds make decisions based on many factors, not all of which
are evident. Some of the factors are situation-dependent; for
example, I might willingly loan you a dollar today, but might refuse
tomorrow because I'm short on cash, I'm in a bad mood, or because you
didn't repay the first dollar.
This is a chaotic system (in the mathematical sense - non-linear,
only broadly predictable with low accuracy.) The human mind doesn't
deal well with unpredictability; the ability to predict the behavior
of other animals and other humans is our big survival advantage, and
we find random responses hateful. "Free will" is our way of
explaining why actions aren't predictable; it's our interpretation of
chaos.
Indeed, how often have you heard someone describe a TV set or
other appliance that behaved erratically as "having a mind of its
own"?
>If all human thoughts and decisions are explainable completely by
>chemical/electrical reactions in the brain, then is that not arguing that
>the chemical/electrical reactions are the casual agents to those thoughts
>and decisions and not vice versa?
Yes; but then, the electrochemical reactions are themselves responses
to some stimulus, e.g. sensory stimulus (observation of external
events). I don't lift my hand because of free will, I lift it because
my arm is cramped, or I see something flying toward me, etc.
>If chemical reactions are the casual
>agents, then how can you explain a chemical being able to cause a biological
>organism to think about and then decide to compute formulas such as the
>Hodge Conjecture or the orbital pattern of Cygnus X-2?
The chemicals don't know or care what thoughts they represent. They
respond to the basic drives, "survive and reproduce". Our instincts
tell us that knowledge is beneficial for both, and thus we ponder
Cygnus X-2 because it satisfies our survival urges. Our mind rewards
us with pleasant feelings for solving problems, even if the problems
don't really matter to our reproduction. (This is truly "mental
masturbation," the intellectual equivalent of tricking your penis into
giving you the pleasure it was designed to give you when you do
something to procreate.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Bill Thacker BAAWA Knight, Atheist #1363 bi...@woods-car.com
Bill's Rail Buggy Page: http://www.woods-car.com
Director of the EAC Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Fast Cars,
and Pornography.
"Be nice to your neighbor. Be hell to his ideas."
Jim Versluys, editor, The Texas Mercury
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
"Craig Pennington" <cpen...@milo.org> wrote in message
news:theeja...@milo.org...
> Ignorance Amongst Whitey's <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
> [responding to: Einstein may not have been a strong atheist, but he
certainly lacked
> belief in a personal god.]
>
> > he was a deist. thats not a strong atheist at all, because it is not an
> > atheist.
>
> He was not a deist in any standard sense. That is, he did not believe in a
god
> who acted out of will or goal, even to create.
>
> "I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or
has a
> will of the kind that we experience in ourselves." _The World As I See
It_
fully compatible with deism.
fully compatible with atheism
>
> "The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical
comprehensibility
> of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the
feeling
> that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the
scheme
> that is manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to
take the
> step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who
makes
> demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is
in this
> neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being."
> from _Albert Einstein: The Human Side_
>
fully compatibile with desim.
fully compatible with atheism
> "I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is
a
> childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the
crusading
> spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a
painful act
> of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in
youth. I
> prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our
> intellectual understanding of nature and of our being."
> In a letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., September 28, 1949
>
fully compatible with deism
fully compatible with atheism
> So I'd say that Einstein was far closer to the position of most atheists
that I
> know than he was to any religious position which draws its authority from
the
> existence of any kind of god, even a deistic one. If he is on the theist
side of
> the line, it is only barely. Certainly the distance between his postion
and that
> of most atheists in my experience is far less than the distance between it
and
> that of any believer in an interventionist god. And Einstein flatly
rejected the
> idea of gods having anything to do with morality. So pretty much anything
> believed in by all but the most liberal modern theologeons is rejected by
> Einstein.
>
I'm not sure what it means to be "closer" to the position of atheism as
opposed to "closest" and "further away" Could you elaborate on this?
these are more quotes by Einstein
"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates
empirically."
"God is subtle but he is not malicious."
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior
spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive
with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the
presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the
incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."
those quotes are fully compatible with deism
incompatible with atheism
Deism is a modified for of theism (belief in an impersonal supernatural
being)
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Thomas P." <ton...@get2spamnet.dk> wrote in message
news:3d5aa768...@nyheder.get2net.dk...
So lets say I said the following:
As a theist, I believe humans have freewill and that I believe thoughts are
not caused stricly by chemicals or electrical stimulli. (note the words: I
believe)
Would you have an opinion now?
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
"Mr. Motes" <mrm...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ajefb2$1qaq$1...@zook.lafn.org...
>
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:Itw69.116732
>
> > Then why are my thoughts controllable?
> > I can decide what I am going to do at a specific time, or even decide to
> > make a decision about an unknown decision at a specific time in a
specific
> > place?
>
> How do you know your thougths are controllable. How could you possibly
> know?
>
see my next statement:
> Free will is an illusion, in my opinion.
Then its being controlled. So which is it? controllable or not? I'm not
quite getting what you are saying.
Our innabilty to precisely predict
> our actions gives us the illusion of free will.
>
I can precisely predict my actions when I want to. I am going to type a
period when this senctence is complete. Done- i precisely predicted my
actions. Maybe I'm the only one that has this ability? Or maybe you are
the only one that cannot precisely predict your actions when you want to?
Not sure.
> We can't predict the weather, but nobody supposes the weather has free
will.
> We can't predict human action either. So why must there be free-will?
>
> Aren't there fatalist, determinist Christians who reject free will as
well,
> like Calvinists?
You just answered your own question. But I'm not really interested in
theistic opinions here.
>
> How do you explaing your supposed free will? God gave it to you? That
> explains nothing, cerainly far less than other human attempts to explain
> things: like science, philosophy, etc.
>
I'm asking you to explain your views. i dont care about mine for now.
> What makes you think that just because humans don't know everything there
> must be a god? Monkeys know even less about the universe than we do. Are
> they even better proof of a god? Or does their ignorance somehow pove
human
> existence?
I dont care about a theist opinion. I wanted to know yours.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
"Don Kresch" <ROT13....@npebarg.arg.getridof.com> wrote in message
news:rm7llusgebktj62j0...@4ax.com...
> In alt.atheism on Wed, 14 Aug 2002 15:26:37 GMT, "Ignorance Amongst
> Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> let us all know that:
> >
> >
> >
> >"Don Kresch" <ROT13....@npebarg.arg.getridof.com> wrote in message
> >news:hdjklu8hdubq36m7u...@4ax.com...
> >> In alt.atheism on Wed, 14 Aug 2002 02:59:33 GMT, "Ignorance Amongst
> >> Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> let us all know that:
> >> >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will?
> >>
> >> It exists.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >cool. Any elaboration?
>
> I don't see how any is needed.
>
simple and to the point. Ill accept that. Thank you.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Craig Pennington" <cpen...@milo.org> wrote in message
news:u2ieja...@milo.org...
> Ignorance Amongst Whitey's <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
> > I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> > even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> I speak only for myself, atheism isn't a world view.
how is it not?
world view means "The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets
the world. "
Do you not interpret the world and the universe from the perspective that it
does not need a god(s)?
>
> I don't think the concept of free will is a meaningful or useful one.
how is that? Most people, including the atheists in here, find the idea
very meaningful. Whole atheist websites are put up devoted to this concept
that all humans (except you?) have that they are able to make free choices-
illusion or not.
>
> > Thoughts.
> > Decision.
> > Action.
>
> > If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions
are
> > fully explained through stricly chemical reactions. Deciding to lift
your
> > right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical
reaction
> > in your brain. This is fully testable under science.
>
> Most of what we do, such as breath, blink, sneeze, raise our hand from a
hot
> burner we do automatically.
All that we do that has meaning is done deliberately (build a bridge,
maintain a friendship, study the universe, respond to an argument)
>
> > In theory, you could
> > induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual not
> > only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his hand.
>
> Yep.
>
> > Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger with one pickle,
3
> > dabs of ketchup and a large half-diet half regular coke is a completely
> > measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not?
>
> Measurable? Within the limits of measurement, I suppose.
>
what are the limits of measurement?
> > In theory, by inducing
> > the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be
able
> > to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do this.
>
> Yep.
>
> > I have not really delved into this much, but has anyone ever tried such
an
> > experiment?
>
> Not at this level, I don't believe. One experiment I remember reading
about
> was one where patients in whose brains electrodes had been placed were put
> in a room with a slide projector and a control. They were told they could
> advance the slides using the control. In fact, the control was a dummy,
> what advanced the slide was brain activity. The subjects reported the
> sensation that the slide projector had anticipated their decision before
> they had actually made it. Hmmm, a quick google turns this interesting
> paper <http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/time&obs.htm> which makes
> reference to the experimint near the end. Gray Walter, 1963.
interesting. thanks for this
then something caused the chemical reactions. What was that?
>
> > If all thoughts
> > are effected by chemical/electrical stimulii, then what exactly,
therefore,
> > is the causual agent that tells the chemical/electrical processes to
cause
> > the thoughts that the biological organism should decide to eat 3 french
> > fries, then a bite of cheeseburger, pause before taking a desired drink
to
> > mentally solve a problem in Visual Basic, take another bite of
cheeseburger,
> > then take a drink? What exactly was the primary cause of those chain of
> > thoughts that eventually led to the decisions that then in turn led to
> > action.
>
> The chemical reactions don't cause the biological organism to make
decisions,
> they are the biological organism making decisions; so your question boils
> down to what causes chemical reactions to occur as they do.
yes it does then.
>
> > If merely chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts, then what
> > told the chemicals "hey, now lets tell this organism that its time to
solve
> > the Hodge Conjecture. Ok chemicals, give him the thought, and them make
him
> > decide to act"
>
> I wouldn't say that ``chemicals "decided" to cause those thoughts;''
rather
> that the chemical reactions were those thoughts happening.
>
fair enough. but what was it that said "Ok, chemicals, start working the
"i'm going to study the phases of the moon" thoughts in this organism"
Longbow
<no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
>even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
>Thoughts.
>Decision.
>Action.
>
>If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions are
>fully explained through stricly chemical reactions.
Well, here is my two cents for you to ponder if you get to it...
Ignore the other posters say things about "true randomness", Chaos
Theory or the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. For starters (and I
probably won't go into too much explanation of this) none of those can
cause there to be "true randomness" in the universe. It is far more
likely that something like that is philosophically impossible. But,
even if it did, it certainly would not explain anything like free
will. Randomness is not a will, so if your actions are caused by
random events or deterministic events they are just as caused and
avolitional either way. Being caused by random events doesn't make
your will free.
So, my homework assignment would not be to look up the uncertainty
principle but rather to look up compatibilism. Basically, "thoughts
--> decisions ---> action" describes merely a *will* -- not a "free
will" per se. The issue of whether that will is free or not is really
one of assigning responsibility to it for the actions and events it
seems to give rise to. This issue is again not one of whether or not
the will was caused but rather if it was the cause of action. The
will could be just as caused as anything else and then subsequently be
the cause of an action. In that case, we say that the action was
committed of the persons "free will". And if this "will" is not
actually arising generally from that person's consciousness but is
instead the effect of some drug induced psychosis (say), then we do
nto say that it was *their* will. That is, we don't attribute it to
them -- their mind.
Those that assert "There is no such thing as free will," are usually
just making a straw man and ultimately exploiting the potential
vagueness inherent to attributing things to a persons mind or
determining what gives rise to what with something as complex as a
brain. It is kind of like the "god of the gaps" argument that you
might have heard of before. As long as there is an ambiguous
borderline case that is not clearly of someones free will or not, they
will always claim "See! There is no free will!" Not only is it
generally beside the point -- little more than a semantic oddity --
but any relevant conclusion one is inclined to draw from it (like that
there is no such thing as predestined will -- that there is no such
thing as "will" at all) is almost always wrong.
Craig Pennington
> "Craig Pennington" <cpen...@milo.org> wrote in message
> news:theeja...@milo.org...
>> Ignorance Amongst Whitey's <no...@nospam.com> wrote:
>> [responding to: Einstein may not have been a strong atheist, but he
>> certainly lacked belief in a personal god.]
>> > he was a deist. thats not a strong atheist at all, because it is
>> > not an atheist.
>> He was not a deist in any standard sense. That is, he did not believe
>> in a god who acted out of will or goal, even to create.
>> "I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or
>> has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves."
>> _The World As I See It_
> fully compatible with deism.
As long as the deist never says of his god that "it wants..."
> fully compatible with atheism
Yep.
>> "The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical
>> comprehensibility of profound interrelations is of a somewhat
>> different sort from the feeling that one usually calls
>> religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme that is
>> manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to
>> take the step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-
>> a personage who makes demands of us and who takes an interest
>> in us as individuals. There is in this neither a will nor a
>> goal, nor a must, but only sheer being."
>> from _Albert Einstein: The Human Side_
> fully compatibile with desim.
As long as the deist never says of her god that "it wants..."
> fully compatible with atheism
Yep.
>> "I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal
>> God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do
>> not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose
>> fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the
>> fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer
>> an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our
>> intellectual understanding of nature and of our being."
>> In a letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., September 28, 1949
> fully compatible with deism
As long as the deist is agnostic
> fully compatible with atheism
Yep.
>> So I'd say that Einstein was far closer to the position of most
>> atheists that I know than he was to any religious position which
>> draws its authority from the existence of any kind of god, even a
>> deistic one. If he is on the theist side of the line, it is only
>> barely. Certainly the distance between his postion and that of most
>> atheists in my experience is far less than the distance between it
>> and that of any believer in an interventionist god. And Einstein
>> flatly rejected the idea of gods having anything to do with morality.
>> So pretty much anything believed in by all but the most liberal
>> modern theologeons is rejected by Einstein.
> I'm not sure what it means to be "closer" to the position of atheism as
> opposed to "closest" and "further away" Could you elaborate on this?
It's straight forward. Almost every theist I know could not say of
the gods in which they believe that they weren't persons. Einstein
says exactly that.
> these are more quotes by Einstein
> "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates
> empirically."
Yes. Never does he say "I believe in a god as the source of morality"
and every time he talks of gods and intention, he rejects the idea as
"childish."
> "God is subtle but he is not malicious."
Yep. Maliciousness implies will, which Einstein rejected.
> "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior
> spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive
> with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the
> presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the
> incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."
"Superior reasoning power" is perhaps the strongest argument that can be
made for Einstein's theism. If one recognizes reasoning in the absence
of will or desire. He rejects absolutely and clearly the considation of
divine intent as far as it applies to morality. He is an unabashed
humanist.
> those quotes are fully compatible with deism
> incompatible with atheism
"From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always
been an atheist."
in a letter to G.H. Raner, 1945
Compatible with atheism and not with deism, since the Jesuits have
been sympathetic to that viewpoint and never would have considered
a deist to be an atheist.
> Deism is a modified for of theism (belief in an impersonal supernatural
> being)
Deism is the belief in a creator god. Usually one who intended to
create; and from whose nature, visible in creation, can be drawn
moral lessons. Einstein rejected non-humanistic morality. Period.
And Einstein, when he claimed a god at all, claimed Spinoza's god.
A god that was identicle with the natural universe. This is not a
creator god, but a god identicle with creation.
Ignorance Amongst Whitey's
.
"Craig Pennington" <cpen...@milo.org> wrote in message
news:a60fja...@milo.org...
He did? I didn't see him say that. Let Einstein make Einsteins claims. I
read his claims regarding his views of God. I re-read them. I could not
find hiim saying that God was identical with the natrual universe. You
inserted that, unless you can produce the quote where einstein said God is
identical with the natural universe.
Dave Holloway
I'm not the Quotemeister anymore. Talk to Nemo, and/or whoever is
webmastering the a.a. website these days.
Dave
Fletch
wrote:
>I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
>even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
Just thought I'd point out to those of you who haven't worked this out yet:
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" is the same poster as
"<^> «\( 0 ¿ 0 \)» <^>....ISLAM"
If his posting and arguing style hasn't switched you onto it yet, take a look at
the message headers from both of these posters, which I've included at the end
of this post.
Cheers
-Fletch
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Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 01:06:06 GMT
Xref: echo-01.iinet.net.au alt.religion.islam:512153
alt.religion.christian:1057719 alt.atheism:2157978
A#638
To reply, remove the underpants from my email address.
Say NO to spam.
http://www.looweeze.com to scatter your brain.
Herb Martin
> >
> > If we do not, then to CHOOSE to claim that we do is not a error
> > but an unavoidable consequence of the lack of a true choice.
> >
> > If we do have free choices, it would be an error to choose
> > incorrect to claim that we have no choice.
> >
> > Therefore, "We have free will and make true choices." is the
> > best statement we can make concerning the question.
> >
> > [This proof is IMPLICIT, but it works.]
> >
> Yes it does. I hadn't read it put that way before. Nicely stated.
As far as I know, I invented it. (There is quite likely some earlier
version out there in psychology or philosophy but I haven't
encountered it.)
I built it as a corrolary to I think therefore I am: Cogito ergo sum.
Mine is: I choose therefore I can.
[BTW, if someone has enough Latin to help me convey the idea
in a catchy latin phrase please let me know.]
Herb Martin
Try ADDS for great Weather too:
http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/projects/adds
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:Ywu69.134103$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
>
>
> .
>
> "Herb Martin" <He...@LearnQuick.Com> wrote in message
> news:vNq69.83634$Yd.39...@twister.austin.rr.com...
> > > >I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
> it
> > > >even exist in the atheist world-view?
> > > >
> > > >Thoughts.
> > > >Decision.
> > > >Action.
> >
> > Presuming the normal definition of free will, it cannot be
> > demonstrated to exist.
> >
> > Quantum Uncertainty will -- perhaps -- server as an direct
> > and convincing argument the Universe and all that happens
> > is no pre-ordained but that in no way implies that humans
> > or other creatures have any direct choice.
> >
> > There is however an IMPLICIT 'proof' of free will that suffices
> > for most scientists on a daily basis even if they are not
> > consciously aware of it.
> >
> > Either we have free will or we do not.
> >
> > If we do not, then to CHOOSE to claim that we do is not a error
> > but an unavoidable consequence of the lack of a true choice.
> >
> > If we do have free choices, it would be an error to choose
> > incorrect to claim that we have no choice.
> >
> > Therefore, "We have free will and make true choices." is the
> > best statement we can make concerning the question.
> >
> > [This proof is IMPLICIT, but it works.]
> >
> Yes it does. I hadn't read it put that way before. Nicely stated.
>
>
> > All of us (with very few exceptions) act 'as if' we have the
> > ability to choose, because on reflection this seems to offer
> > us the best possible chance for happiness and success and
> > because any other answer is meaningless or irrelevant.
> >
> >
> > Herb Martin
> >
> > "We cannot even prove that the world exists as a physical
> > thing, but we all act as if it does -- to do otherwise risks
> > being run over by automobiles or falling from tall buildings."
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
Herb Martin
> predictable. For example, I detest social dancing, do not do it well, and
will
> avoid any gathering based on it. Whether this is due to past experience,
> something in my genes or a congenital heart condition doesn't really
matter. To
> that extent I do not really have free will. However, to carry this notion
to
> the extreme where even the tiniest action is predetermined necessarily
requires
> a plan, which in turn requires a planner, something an atheist rejects.
No planner is required for predetermination. A Newtonian
world with all actions calcuable (?sp) based on the initial
conditions provides a model for predetermination.
Even quantum mechanics which introduces some uncertainty
and randomness into any process does not provide a -- direct
-- mechanism for human (intelligent) choice. Quantum dynamics
merely removes the absolute predetermination from a newtonian
world.
I choose to accept we have a choice -- therefore I do.
Herb Martin
Try ADDS for great Weather too:
http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/projects/adds
<ken...@shangrila.net> wrote in message
news:3D5A8734...@bellatlantic.net...
> Ignorance Amongst Whitey's wrote:
>
> > I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does it
> > even exist in the atheist world-view?
>
> To a rather large extent my, and, I imagine, everyone else's, behavior is
> predictable. For example, I detest social dancing, do not do it well, and
will
> avoid any gathering based on it. Whether this is due to past experience,
> something in my genes or a congenital heart condition doesn't really
matter. To
> that extent I do not really have free will. However, to carry this notion
to
> the extreme where even the tiniest action is predetermined necessarily
requires
> a plan, which in turn requires a planner, something an atheist rejects.
>
Mr. Motes
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:UID69.21296$983.28956@rwcrnsc53...
>
> He did? I didn't see him say that. Let Einstein make Einsteins claims.
I
> read his claims regarding his views of God. I re-read them. I could not
> find hiim saying that God was identical with the natrual universe. You
> inserted that, unless you can produce the quote where einstein said God is
> identical with the natural universe.
From that famous 1954 letter:
"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have
expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious
then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as
our science can reveal it."
And of course from Einstein: The Life and Times:
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of
what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of
human beings."
And on free will also from Einstein: The Life and Times:
"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over
which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the
star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious
tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."
Mr. Motes
Herb Martin
I find the word 'stochastic' to be one that almost everyone
has trouble understanding.
How are you using the word? What definition would you
apply?
BTW, randomness does NOT imply choice but it does avoid
determininism.
Herb Martin
Try ADDS for great Weather too:
http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/projects/adds
"Mike Ruskai" <spammoc.r...@begoneynnaht.net> wrote in message
news:gunaalargpneevrep...@news.netcarrier.com...
Herb Martin
get suspicious.
But to me your question and your responses so far
seemed reasonable and curious, a request for feedback
rather than a push of some dogma.
Herb Martin
Try ADDS for great Weather too:
http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/projects/adds
"Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:fst69.133106$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
>
> .
>
> "ABVP" <AB...@yahoo.fr> wrote in message
> news:d466793f.02081...@posting.google.com...
> > "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:<pIj69.123477$uj.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
> > > I was just wondering, how does an atheist explain free-will? Or does
it
> > > even exist in the atheist world-view?
> > >
> > > Thoughts.
> > > Decision.
> > > Action.
> > >
> > > If all that is in a man is physical, then all thoughts and decisions
> are
> > > fully explained through stricly chemical reactions. Deciding to lift
> your
> > > right hand would be explainable by a specific chemical/electrical
> reaction
> > > in your brain. This is fully testable under science. In theory, you
> could
> > > induce the same chemical/electrical reaction and cause an individual
not
> > > only to raise his hand, but do so thinking he *chose* to raise his
hand.
> > > Deciding to go to a McDonalds and order a cheeseburger with one
pickle,
> 3
> > > dabs of ketchup and a large half-diet half regular coke is a
completely
> > > measurable thing within atheistic thought is it not? In theory, by
> inducing
> > > the correct chemical/electrical stimullii to the brain, you should be
> able
> > > to cause someone to not just do this, but think they *chose* to do
this.
> > > I have not really delved into this much, but has anyone ever tried
such
> an
> > > experiment? Taking it one step futher, it should therefore be fully
> > > explainable that even your thoughts (the ones you "decide" not to act
> on)
> > > are also inducable through simply electrical/chemical stimulli
> > >
> > > --
> > > ..........................
> > >
> > > One God
> > > One Lifetime
> > > One Hope
> > >
> > > remove "spammfilter" from my email address to reply to me.
> > >
> > > .
> >
> > This is disturbing.]
>
>
> Which part? That I am a theist which has nothing to do with me asking an
> honest question, or you offering not even a single sentence that
formulates
Mr. Motes
>
>
> "Mr. Motes" <mrm...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:ajefb2$1qaq$1...@zook.lafn.org...
> >
> > "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" <no...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> > news:Itw69.116732
> >
> > > Then why are my thoughts controllable?
> > > I can decide what I am going to do at a specific time, or even decide
to
> > > make a decision about an unknown decision at a specific time in a
> specific
> > > place?
> >
> > How do you know your thougths are controllable. How could you possibly
> > know?
> >
> see my next statement:
>
>
> > Free will is an illusion, in my opinion.
>
> Then its being controlled. So which is it? controllable or not? I'm
not
> quite getting what you are saying.
Well you said,
"Then why are my thoughts controllable? I can decide what I am going to do
at a specific time, or even decide to make a decision about an unknown
decision at a specific time in a specific place?"
How can you know you control your thoughts and actions? You can only go one
way through time, you can't possibly test to see if you could've done of
thought something different at that exact same moment.
>
> Our innabilty to precisely predict
> > our actions gives us the illusion of free will.
> >
> I can precisely predict my actions when I want to. I am going to type a
> period when this senctence is complete. Done- i precisely predicted my
> actions. Maybe I'm the only one that has this ability? Or maybe you are
> the only one that cannot precisely predict your actions when you want to?
> Not sure.
This has nothing to do with my point. We can't predict the behavior of
humans with anywhere near the accuracy we have in predicting the movements
of the stars. That doesn't mean it can't be done, just that we cant' do it.
Mr. Motes
Herb Martin
predict
> our actions gives us the illusion of free will.
See my (implicit) proof for free will elsewhere in this thread.
> How do you explaing your supposed free will? God gave it to you? That
> explains nothing, cerainly far less than other human attempts to explain
> things: like science, philosophy, etc.
>
Explanations are preferable, but explanations are not a
requirement for something to be shown to exist or to be
treated as real.
We cannot really 'explain' gravity; we can only describe it's
effects and rules.
We do not have to invoke a god in order to postulate gravity
nor to claim free will.
> As for Heisenberg, i was under the impression that the uncertainty
priciple
> was more about our inability to measure certain things accurately, not
> neccesarily about those certain things actually being random.
You are correct. Heisenberg is normally associated with the 'uncertainly
principle', a statement about what it is possible to measure. Heisenberg
was in a larger context a theoreticist in quantum mechanics which allows
for a (probably) certain amount of randomness in the universe but does
not in any (direct) way address "free will" or choice by intelligent human
beings.
Quantum mechanics provides a natural 'out' from pre-determinism but
does not address choice.
Herb Martin
> my post perhaps caused a desire for you to respond, but did it force you?
> Could you not have chosen to resist the impulse to do something? Did my
> post merely illicit an impulse or is it actually the causual agent that
> forced the response, including the sentences and the wording?
Be careful here -- this borders on the method of the troll <grin>
I am kidding, but this is an accusation already made of you.
Personally, I think this discussion is far more interesting than much
of the typical rubbish that passes here for conversation.
Herb Martin
yet:
>
> "Ignorance Amongst Whitey's" is the same poster as
> "<^> «\( 0 ¿ 0 \)» <^>....ISLAM"
Ok, but I haven't seen any serious evidence of "trollhood" in
this thread.
Thanks for the warning.