sweep

I have to go in ten mins so I'll make this a quicky.

we are more free when we are free from want. If we had no stomach or didn't need to eat then we would not be compelled to work or to hunt, and life would be a whole lot more different.

Limitations are vital in determining freedom, which doesn't have much to do with free will, but with freedom of choice and action. Conceptually we can change the boundaries of any given subject (slice the cake any way you like) giving way to countless hours of debate, or making it meaniingless altogether.

I know you're looking for certainty, but isn't that constraining you further? By becoming less certain we open the doors (clean out the cobwebs) and, since we have no tower, no-one can attack it. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, yada, yada

Infinity Lover

Free to do what? Whatever you'd answer there, I could subsequently ask: "Is that what you want to do?" Without wants freedom wouldn't be pointless (who'd want to be free to do what they don't want to do?). Freedom is the lack of obstacles between us and our wants I think, and not the absence of those wants. The funny thing is, that some wants form obstacles, in which case we need to choose what we want more. Prioratizing.

As far as certainties go (straying off topic a tat there), those are most often unobtainable goals to get infinitely closer and closer to. Opening new doors in pursuit of answers, breaking free from old perceptions rather than constraining yourself by them.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

You can't today eat all the food you'll need for the rest of your life, nor breathe all the air, nor get sleep 'out of the way'.

No matter how much you have, you can still improve, still find new things to do...

As long as you live, you'll never be free from want--

--and you'll never be truly free.

Keith.

Kharakov

Keith-

Give me liberty, or give me liberty.

sweep

good points, and well put.

that's another form of freedom, I agree. To look at only one side of the issue, is, foolish, so here we have another facet.

Prioritisation is a good way of putting it. I ask myself what is truly valid, and how to remove those obstacles stopping me from living differently than I do now.

In the way of freedom from want, to reinforce one aspect of the whole, our perceptions are constrained when we have intentions. I notice the coloured lights and the signs beckoning people in to stores, and were all standing there, aliens all looking at things, and ignoring one another. I wonder why I'm even in there (again, I add, but I would rather change this word to *aloss*) and step outside, look up and see all the glory that huddersfield town once was. But most of the time were distracted, and thereby, not free to see.

I can't find new things, because the things that I do have are obstacles, in the way of progress. The worst of it is, I know it, making me only half wise. I'm getting there slowly.

*the problem is that, what I call strong tastes, such as nicotine, alcohol, salt, sugar, sex, opiates, t.v. computers, and luxuries in general, make us, or should I say me if (not you), more predictable and easier to control, as people. Distractions prevent us from seeing, so freedom from want is freedom to see clearly.

When all things become worthless, then, I become a cow- eating, sleeping, shitting, breathing, lowing.*

fuck it- this message is worthless, the dog needs exercise, it's nice and windy out, and there's a full moon to boot- hoowwuull!

Primal

Well I sure hope not because they may then just randomnly decide to "choose" to do something diabolical and run over a little kid.


I mean if free will was real, and people just deciding to do things on the basis of "free will" i.e. by random, in an unpredictable manner then driving would be hazardous indeed!

Infinity Lover

Are you, by use of that example, saying we don't have free will because we need to be considerate towards others, and abide by rules we subsequently invent? Or are those rules invented, because otherwise things would get ugly due to the free will we do have?

AnthonyAdams45

What Primal is saying is that conditions dictate actions. If wills were without any conditioning, i.e., completely free, then, one would be as likely to run over small children as not. That we or more likely to avoid the little pests indicates that are wills are not free, i.e, are conditioned.

(Not, I am using the term "conditioned" here not in the sense of a behaviorist, but rether in the sense of a logician: The antecedent determine the conditional.)

sweep

prove to me that you have free will Infinity- run around the block starkers, with nothing but your shoes, while blaring the song 'singing in the rain'

Go and do it now, then tell me how you feel afterwards!

Keith Russell

Greetings:

"If wills were without any conditioning, i.e., completely free, then, one would be as likely to run over small children as not. That we or more likely to avoid the little pests indicates that are wills are not free, i.e, are conditioned."

But, isn't the reverse also true? By your reasoning, the sociopath who chooses to run over little kids, is just as 'conditioned' as those of us who refrain from such action.

Your definition of free will is unfalsifiable.

Keith.