This is what divides the left wing and the right wing, its the concept of "free will"

When you pull the quantum card its exactly like pulling the God card, you are saying Quantum Mechanic is so mysterious, which it is, that we cannot saying anything is for certain anymore, which is true, but it doesnt mean we have to throw everything we know out of the window and only pay attention to Quantum Mechanics, thats utterly ridiculous.

Basically yes im saying your brain determines you decision, NOT your spirit as the right wing mostly believes. There is a big difference between a spirit, and a biological brain. Its mostly religious people who believe in free will, that is because they believe they have a immortal spirit not bound by the laws of nature. Honestly I believe we agree with each other but this is such a complicated subject we are not exactly sure what the other person is saying lol, due to the way people define certain words such as "Spirit" and "free will".

 

The whole idea of a spirit has not been proven as of yet. However, unlike God, which there is clearly no evidence for, we all have this...'thing' in our heads, this 'us' we identify as ourselves. This thing is not explained simply by the biology of a brain. Something strange is going on here and we know not what it is.

It is not ridiculous to maintain that free will is possible when the universe fundamentally seems to operate on what appears to be a probablistic, indeterminate level. And give that 'I' cannot be explained by current science, you cannot claim to have definite or even close to definite answers just because you have a self-contained train of logic that works within its own boundaries. You seem to not want to admit we do not knwo as much as we'd like to think we do.

I don't think anything can exist outside of the laws of physics, that would be absurd. But those who believe in spirits may be right on some level. The closest analogy we have to an eternal spirit is energy, which is, as far as we can tell, eternal. Since 'I' am not physical - I am simply produced by a physical brain - I can conclude I am probably energy. That means when I die, that energy will still exist. So in a sense, 'I' am eternal.

 

Your whole argument is based on "Well, we do not know" so you pretend that just because we dont know, therefore free will exists. Its the exact same argument the religious use, they say "You dont know there isnt a God, therefore he exists" or they say you cant disprove there is a God, bam I win! Its no real argument at all, just re-read your post, your entire argument is based on the premise of "Well we dont know, so I may be right" lol. Well the things im going off of are things we DO know, and that is nature vs nurture.

 

Not exactly, because they give up the Golden Rule when being brainwashed into Islam. We are all born with the Golden Rule unless something crazy happens in our life, like being brainwashed into Islam. We are animals, and animals use the Golden rule for the most part, so the fact Islam takes that away from children can easily make it qualify as brainwashing.

 

God you really do read what you want to read don't you? I didn't say any of that. I didn't say "We don't know, therefore I am right." I said that you cannot insist that everything is deterministic and I have no choice in my decisions, when the universe simply doesn't operate like that, not on a quantum level at least. And while my brain functions on the macro level, where your logic would be right, my consciousness does not. It does not appear to "exist" anywhere, and yet it does. I can't prove my mind is quantum in nature, you are free to take that and run with it, but I'd be willing to bet that it is. I very much wonder if Quantum Mechanics might, if we know more of it, explain this strange disconnect between my brain and my consciousness and the nature of each of them. Of course some argue we can't understand our own minds no matter how hard we try. Only time will tell if that is the case.

Oddly enough, like a religious person you seem like the idea of determinism because, at least in theory, it makes everything assured, and theoretically predictable. Quantum theory tosses that out the window with Chaos theory, probability and random events and fluctuations and makes things inherently uncertain and potentially unknowable. To a mind that is always trying to understand and predict to survive, that is a scary thought. It is why religion exists.

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Yes I do.

 

How do you know the kid wasnt raised to be a dick? Or that the kid doesnt have a mental issue? Humans are much more likely to have a pscyhological disorder than an animal as far as im concerned. You dont think a kid being mean has to do with how his parents or his neighbors treat him? Of course it does. The Golden Rule obviously has some exceptions.

The Golden rule doesnt apply to prey lol, for all the ant knows he is either trying to eat you or protect his colony, in this instance the Golden Rule does not apply. Do you ever see fire ants biting each other? I havent, they bite you because they likely see you as a threat or you probably stepped on one of their buddies and you didnt see it. Me personally I go out of my way not to step on ants, I wont even kill a fly im super weird like that. I get a plastic bag and catch them with it than put them outside like the good little Socialist Hippie I am lol, I smoke way too much weed to murder something so helpless

 

You dont know how things work on the Quantum level, nobody really does, so again here you are saying that im wrong because we dont know enough about Quantum Theory yet. Its ridiculous.

 

No, I'm saying this indeterminism is an inescapable part of Quantum Mechanics. You're not wrong because we don't know what is causing given quantum events, you're wrong because we can't know. Now some have argued that things are technically still determined, we simply can't find the variables that make it so - ie, everything is determined, but probablistic from a predictory perspective because we can never know all the variables behind an event. Tests on Bell's Theorem seemed to disprove this, but the jury is not fully out on that.

THAT is the part we don't know.

Let me be clear: true, 'do whatever I want' free will is possible only for a concept like God (so, you could in fact say the entirety of everything IS God, though more in the Cartesian philosophical sense than the modern monotheist religious sense).

 

So what is the link between quantum mechanics and opinions and beliefs?

 

I'm not about to say a person's religion is stupid in the first place. Secondly, I've already agreed that there are influences in life, more so as a child. And yes, some cling to a belief system for a variety of reasons. The important part of becoming an adult is you get to look at those influences and decide if they represent who you are. You get to ask, "Do I represent my influences, or do my influences represent me?" Being an adult means you can walk away from preconceived notions, influences, belief systems, your idea of brainwashing, and decide that you don't want it anymore. You can grow past what you have been taught to believe. You educate yourself, find out what is real on your own terms, not based upon what were once important influences that helped to define your world. You test your own ideas, create something from your own mind, you find the courage to step beyond your limitations.

You make a good point. I know plenty of weekend Christians, show boat new agers, self proclaimed masters. I published a spiritual monthly paper years ago that explored all kinds of religions. I'm not quick to denounce the faith of another. It is not for me to decide for them what is in their heart to believe. Radical religion? I'm more likely to use your brainwashing idea here.

As a former hypnotherapist, I'm very aware how the mind can be influenced, and how suggestible the mind is. I also know for a fact how powerful the mind is, and once a person finds their own way, yes, their will becomes their own. When this happens, the sky is the limit. The way they get to this state of mind is to realize they are the result of themselves. As an adult, they can make choices not based upon the influences of the past. They grow up and no longer find the need to let their childhood influences decide the direction their life will go.

 

Basically what you are saying is yes im right, but it only applies to children....Thats ridiculous, everyone holds beliefs in their adulthood that they had as children. For example, I was raised around animals its not like just because im not an adult that all of the sudden I can choose not to care about animals anymore, I will ALWAYS care about animals and there is nothing I can do to change that, its how I was raised. Now, if I wild dog in the street was to bite me and almost kill me or something, that might make me scared of dogs for the rest of my life, but is it my free will decision to be scared of dogs? No, if I was bite by a wild dog THAT would be the reason I am scared of them, not because of a free will decision. Have you ever met somebody who is literally terrified of dogs? I have, and everytime its because when they were a kid or something they got bit really bad by a wild dog, so even as adults they are scared of dogs. Again, this has nothing to do with free will, this is about personal life experiences.


Do you think its a coincidence most people raised as Muslims since they were children retain their Islamic faith even into adulthood? Same for Christians. I was raised Christian by both my parents, I am now an atheist because their teachings were contradictory. They taught me to love animals, than they tried to tell me animals dont go to heaven and are only here to serve man? Literally as soon as I heard by parents say that I dropped Christianity at 11 years old, I would give up my religion before I give up my love for animals. Was it my free will decision to choose animals over God? Not exactly, because my parents never really forced their religion on me, it was me who asked if animals go to heaven its not something they randomly told me. I did not make the decision not to believe in God because of free will, I made the decision precisely because I love animals and Christianity goes against that love. The same way Christians dont make the free will decision to not believe in evolution, they were raised since children to believe we were made by God so when someone tells them they were evolved from Apes, of course they will deny it, they were raised to do so.

 

Wow! So many issues I don't know where to start. I'll just go with this:

"I was raised Christian by both my parents, I am now an atheist because their teachings were contradictory." El Paso didn't make you decide this. Brainwashing didn't force your hand here. A biting dog didn't corner you and force your decision. Indoctrination didn't poison your mind so that you no longer had a mind of your own. YOU DECIDED BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE FREE WILL TO DO SO. You judged their teachings and found them to be contradictory. Give the man a cigar. You made the choice and it was your choice to make. FREE WILL. So simple a cave man can do it. I'll give you the last word.

 

I did make the decision, but the decision was heavily influenced by my personal life experiences, is it really that hard of a concept to understand?

 

I think you are going out of your way to twist something so simple into something complex. You do tend to act as if you have no control, and no say so, where your influences are concerned. You pretend your influences overwhelm your own thinking to the point if not being able to act with clear thought. But you prove yourself wrong in your very attempt to convince people that you are overly influenced and therefore have no free will. Free will is as simple as hitting the enter key and sending your post out into the world.

 

Well for one, quantum mechanics is linked to everything because it explains how the universe works. Specifically, we are dealing with the idea that decisions made in your mind are not deterministic, that at the quantum level the base for every decision is unpredictable - ie, we cannot look at the layout of your neurons and brain cells and the data stored within them and determine what your decisions will be. That fundamentally your decisions are based either on hidden criteria we cannot know, and thus predict, or on no set criteria at all. Which is the case depends on who you ask and whose experiments you believe.

 

Influence is not cause.

 

So when a Muslim beheads a Christian, that is his free will? It has nothing to do with that Muslim being brainwashed since birth? Grow up

 

Of course it's his free will. We are ALL influenced every day but we make our own decisions in the end.

See this is the problem with lefties. You have no sense of personal responsibility or accountability because you place all the blame for the bad things in your life on others.

In fact you are influenced by all sorts of things. That muslim may be influenced by his religion, he also may be influenced by his child who he might lose, he also may be influenced by a Christian friend he knew a long time ago, he may be influenced by any NUMBER of things... but at the end of the day he has to make his own decision regardless of the influences which are brought to bear.

 

Your entire response is pretty much a straw man where it isn't completely bogus. Do you believe that every law you disagree with is theocratic in nature. If so the how do you explain the fact that it was progressives that wrote the first drug laws in this country not religious folk.

 

Lol no not everything I disagree with is theocratic in nature, and you accuse me of having a strawman argument?

The issues I named which you quoted were clearly theocratic, there is no denying it. I doubt progressives wrote the first drug laws, feel free to provide proof.

 

The social environment is a huge influence on the individual. We are born into and grow up in what we see as "normal". That means we tend to think that this is how it is and it's not going to change. As we grow older and get out and about a bit we might start to realise that, wait a minute, things are a
bit different with everyone else. But that assumes that we will have some chance at social mobility. Many of us will not. Many of us will simply
replicate our parents' lives in many ways. Not because of a lack of free will but because of a lack of understanding that things don't have to be
the same for us as they were for our parents. We grow up in a social mileu and unless something gets us out of it we will stay within it.


Society has to provide opportunities for people to get out of where they are if they are in a bad place. Education is one opportunity. But to
truly gain some sort of advantage from education someone has to value it. In some stratas of any society there will be those who produce children who go on to tell their children that education is a waste of time and they need to get a job or start understanding how welfare works.

How we get over that I don't know.


Anyway your post contains some subtlety which is good to read and which provokes thought, so thank you for posting it.

 

And thank you too for posting. And to ManifestDestiny for starting this thread as well. This topic is a rarity here in PF. Most people don't discuss such topics in regular everyday life.

You bring up about society needing to provide opportunities. From a conservative perspective, opportunities abound everywhere. It isn't simply about education or providing welfare. There are everyday struggles that present opportunity. Hate to take the bus and want a car? Make the choice to change your life to get a car. Want a better life for your kids? Take charge of life and be the example and inspiration for your kids. Show them how to use their will and determination. Want to live on welfare all your life? Make that choice as well. We can agree to have our life as it has been handed to us, but only with our full cooperation and endorsement.

Those who want more money know how others with money live. Those who want more freedom in their life know what that looks like. We are capable of making the decisions to move toward those goals. Everyone can make better choices because we are free to do so. A better life isn't forbidden. It is your own choice, your own employment of will. To not do this is to fade away, turn away from desire, to willfully diminish oneself, and to hide away and provide excuses for perpetual unhappiness.