Jack Jack]1- You forgot to define I. My definition of I is : the ensemble of my [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia said:
That definition strikes me as both bizarre and utterly useless. Could you define "I" in such a way that it doesn't rest on a heap of philosophical nonsense? Judging by your further comments, your definition of "self" is of the kind that essentially amounts to nothing.
"Predefined" and "free will" are mutually exclusive.
That depends on your definitions. If someone disagrees that "predefined" and "free will" are mutually exclusive, it is fair to say that they don't mean "free will" the same way that you do. Granted, determinism and free will are indeed mutually exclusive in the understanding of most people. But if someone holds that they are not, besides being unconventional, it doesn't really matter.
Jack Jack, if tomorrow you meet a beautiful girl and she's interested in you and you don't have the guts to ask her out, you don't have to feel bad about it. You don't have free will. If you've made mistakes in your life, don't learn from them. You didn't make those mistakes. Hormones did. Go rape someone. Tell the judge you didn't have free will. And when you die in bed lonely and without any accomplishments in life, it won't feel so bad, because you didn't have free will anyway. You guys have taken something as elementary as free will and turned into an excuse. An excuse so outrageously pathetic it's like you want me to be a cynic again. But then I remember that you guys are cynics, so I swallow my frustration and remember exactly why I'm on the side of the people with internally inconsistent concepts. I cherish learning from my mistakes and I love who I am, and the things I am predestined to do, and being predictable is not the same thing as having no will. You might as well say that you don't have a personality. And if wasn'y such a semantics whore, I might agree.
Unlike you (it seems), we really, really don't care whether we have free will or not. It has no effect on our behavior. What we do care about is knowing what we're talking about, and assessing what is true. If we deem that determinism and free will are incompatible, and that determinism is the case, then we will conclude that free will does not exist. Whoop dee fucking doo.
Free will discussions are not about colloquial free will, it's about digging deeper. Your definition of free will essentially amounts to "we have free will! it's obvious!". And then you pull bizarre equivalences about free will, thinking, existence and whatnot, even though none of these concepts are really related.
I mean, fuck, if you can't do philosophy, stay out of it.
I am, or I am not. If both of these are possible outcomes and we will never know the answer, one is still more practical and productive than the other. So I am. I don't need quales to know what I am, I only need a brain and I happen to have one. It seems to me like everyone but me has an internally inconsistent concept of who they are in this thread. I am, I exist, I make choices, and I do. The outcome of my choices is predefined by my free will.
Neither is more "practical" or "productive" than the other. Whether I believe I have free will or not, that God exists or not, that I exist or not, won't change my behavior. I want to believe what's true, and avoid believing what's false, and then optimize my own well-being accordingly to these beliefs. I'm not debating about whether free will exists or not because it matters, I'm doing it because I'm curious about the topic. Because it sure as fuck does
not matter to me whether I have it or not - all I care about,
always, is whether I can be confident that my belief correlates with truth.
Then you smartasses say "Oh, well you need to define I". How is there any confusion to what I means? If a button is pushed by me, are you going to tell me that I didn't push that button? Did the easter bunny push it? So there shouldn't be any matter as to what I means. You know who I'm talking about when I say I. Don't act like you don't. I live. I don't coast by and fool myself into thinking that I'm a slave to external stimuli, cause my brain is wired not to be. And regardless of what you have to say about the matter, the contents of my brain is who I am. That's the most physical, scientific explanation of the matter. You say qualia, some say soul, I say neurons. I can prove the existence and function of neurons.
Oh for fuck's sake, can't you just read the goddamn thread? I've defined "I" as the collection of machines that my brain can identify with. Jack Jack has defined "I" as "the ensemble of my qualia" (whatever that means). Some religious people might define "I" as "my soul" (again - whatever that means). You have defined "I" as "the contents of my brain" (which is quite decent! but why did it take you so goddamn long to say it?) Regardless of whether they really make sense or not, that's
four definitions that at least one person is going to support.
FOUR.
And then you have the fucking
nerve to call me a smartass for asking for definitions? If you don't define "I", how the
fuck am I supposed to know what you're talking about? How am I supposed to know whether you believe in souls like so many people do, or that your definition is more reasonable, or even weirder? I'm not here to read your mind, you know. If I ask for definitions, that's because it is necessary. That's because I've seen the kind of bullshit people come up with sometimes.
When I say that most people have an inconsistent idea of free will, it is mainly because a widely held opinion is that free will and determinism are mutually exclusive, and free will and randomness (of choice) are also mutually exclusive. Since this covers all possible cases, there's nothing left that free will could be. Furthermore, many people have a strange conception of their "self" (soul, qualia, etc) that's divorced from their brain. All this put together is a huge mess, and I hope you can see why definitions are so important.