Summations Only

Hello Xongsmith, Free will has many definitions. So I suppose the best place to start any discussion is to define in your words what do you mean by freewill? As Straggler has pointed out freewill is a dilemma.
It is paradoxical in that strict hard determinism implies no free will and random events implies no free agent. Either way there is no true freewill in either regard in a Compatibilistic view point.It could be a loop of deterministic events feeding into a cascade of random events further cycling more deterministic causal events.Although Straggler hates the idea of dualism, sometimes imo things are 'both'. Maybe we need a new term.causality -->effect+random events=causality-->effectA computer is a complicated turing device. It can generate random strings of numbers. But for a computer to develop free will it would have to decide one day to not do a calculation it was programmed to do simply because it didnt feel like it. Will computers ever become sentient and develop freewill. I personally think they will. I mean it happened to our organic processor, it is just a question of when imo.

Nah, just sheep shaggers! Edited by 1.61803, : No reason given.

Yes, by strict definition you are correct.Your right. I contend in any view, mine included free will poses a paradox that is not reconcilable. Edited by 1.61803, : spelling

Hi Doc, And I as well. So far so good. I am a compatibilist in the sense that the alternative is hard determinism. One of the issues I have with that is the idea that people who do really heinous things are really just victims of the inevitable. What are your thoughts along those lines?

Hence the controversy.A quantum fluctuation 14 billion years ago lead to Straggler posting on EVC this morning.No freewill needed it is a illusion.This is a fact, you did post and the big bang happened. So logic dictates the fact that you posted was caused by the big bang.Or is there anyway to reconcile the possibility that the thing that is you made a novel choice yet undetermined until it was actualized and the wave function responsible for every outcome that led to your selection collapsed?

If a bad person does bad things.Would not hard determinism suggest it was inevitable that person would be a bad person and do bad things?Even though the person is culpable, in the strict sense what we call freewill, they had no choice. Because they are simply operating in accordance to the previous initial conditions that led to the outcome of they're despicable behavior.Technically it is not they're fault, like Mrs. Rabbit said,
"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

culpable yes in that our system holds the person to be responsible. But not because they could not help being born a
cannibalistic murdering pediophile.Yes in a court of law the guy is going to get the juice. Because our laws could give a rats-ass what made the monster, it just wants to find a way of removing the monster from the innocent population.Frankenstein could not help it he was a murdering monster. No more than Gacy could help it he was.It was predetermined they would offend. Perhaps that movie Minority Report would be the best way to deal with such dilemmas. To bad time travel is not possible.*At this time*Edited by 1.61803, : * added*

We are condemned to be free, at least according to Sarte.It is by acting in bad faith that we attempt to relinquish our responsibility. We are indeed thrown into the world not of our making, but I believe we are free agents in that we inevitably decide what we do. I could of course be completely wrong. But I can not see how pure determinism would explain random off the cuff shit that happens. A microtube in the flaggellum of a sperm could have a electron be entangled with some other virtual particle and bingo that inevitable noble peace prize winner or mass murder will perhaps not be born. Or some random mutation occurs that selects out some needed protein and again a deterministic path is disrupted by chance. I believe obscure random events can and do affect our macro world.For lack of a nail the kingdom was lost.

Its all maya!!!!!!!!!

Hi Xong,I see it this way,determinism dictates what happens after a causal agent is effected by guess what? Yep another causal agent.What bakes my brain is how some folks would say the universe is uncaused and in the same breath tout hard determinism. Which seems contradictory to me.So which is it? I say both. Ut oh, smacks of dualism eh? I say no
it is all one thing. The illusion imo is that it is two separate things. sabe?We humans perceive the world through our senses. We do not and can not know what the real world is. We live in a state of illusory confidence. The quantum world shows how everything is in flux and nothing is nailed down. On a macro level we go about our day using our maps of the world to navigate our lives. Is the map real or illusion? Does something that exist need a physical address? I think free will is like that, although it may be illusory in the sense that it is our perception, it does not make it any less real imo. mah dos centavos.
Monty Python Galaxy song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWVshkVF0SYEdited by 1.61803, : No reason given.

Yes I am aware of that paper, and find that if our consciousness as of yet can NOT be explained by quantum discoherance it only makes it that much more a mysterious.

To some extent, If you are unconscious you very well can not exert your will. Excellent question, which is why I like reading your post. You force one to consolidate ideas.I think it would be difficult to take ourselves out of the picture. (so to speak) we live in a deterministic universe.
As Dr. Adequate has stated, "I get by alright." The system works. The thing that is thinking it has a freewill, (The Self) isnt that illusory as well? But that does not prevent it (The Self) from making choices. Illusions are the maps, the terrain is reality. We interface reality through our conciousness/brain. As a free agent with a conscious mind and will we can do what we choose. It is advantageous for a creature to be able to navigate and model reality as closely as the brain seems to be able to do. However the bad news is, no matter how calculating and careful our individual choices, we are at the mercy of everyone else's choices for better or worse. Determinism, we just can not escape it.

I do not know that there is yet a definate answer as to whether or not our brain is a quantum computer or not. At least this Wiki article seems to suggest the jury is still out on this one.Quantum mind - Wikipedia
Ongoing debate
The main argument against the quantum mind proposition is that quantum states in the brain would decohere before they reached a spatial or temporal scale, at which they could be useful for neural processing. This argument was elaborated by the physicist, Max Tegmark. Based on his calculations, Tegmark concluded that quantum systems in the brain decohere quickly and cannot control brain function. He states that "This conclusion disagrees with suggestions by Penrose and others that the brain acts as a quantum computer, and that quantum coherence is related to consciousness in a fundamental way".[2][3]
A recent paper by Engel et al. in Nature does indicate quantum coherent electrons as being functional in energy transfer within photosynthetic organisms, but the quantum coherence described lasts for 660 fs[40] rather than the 25 milliseconds required by Orch-OR, and this is compatible with Tegmark's calculations. More recent papers involving Guerreshi, G., Cia, J., Popescu, S. and Briegel, H. [25] are looking to improve their model of entanglement in protein, a test which could falsify theories, such as those of Penrose and Hameroff, that require non-trivial coherence or entanglement in protein. In their reply own reply to Tegmark's paper, also published in Physical Review E, the physicists Scott Hagan, Jack Tuszynski in collaboration with Hameroff [41][42] produced counter proposals to the effect that the interiors of neurons could alternate between liquid and gel states. In the gel state, it was further hypothesized that the water electrical dipoles are oriented in the same direction, along the outer edge of the microtubule tubulin subunits. Hameroff et al. proposed that this ordered water could screen any quantum coherence within the tubulin of the microtubules from the environment of the rest of the brain.
In the last decade some other research has been argued to favour quantum theories of consciousness. Between 2003 and 2009, Elio Conte and co-authors performed a number of experiments interpreted as evidence for "possible existence of quantum interference effects on mental states during human perception and cognition of ambiguous figures".[43][44] Further, in a 2011 paper in Physical Review Letters,it is argued that the sensitivity of European robins to small changes in the prevailing magnetic field is evidence that "superposition and entanglement are sustained in this living system for at least tens of microseconds, exceeding the durations achieved in the best comparable man-made molecular systems", and the authors produce a simple model to this effect.[45][46][47]
[edit]See alsoEdited by 1.61803, : spellcheck