Posted on 10/21/2023 8:22:02 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
So he is a Calvinist?
Common sense compelled me to it and i made the choice to post- i could just as easily have made the choice not to post
"they can't help themselves".....
Why call it ‘free will’?
Call it, ‘understanding the difference between right or wrong’. When it comes to right or wrong, most people know the difference. Most people will choose to do right and to elect to do the right thing when other choices do not agree with their consciences. Those that do not will either get punishment or will be shunned.
Simple enough.
I tend to agree.
The human body and brain (which we were born with and had no choice in the matter) is a system that responds to stimuli. We are very similar in many respect so we tend to have similar responses and make similar choices. But we are also different and unique in other respects and as a result may at times end up making different decisions. Our choices are driven by our pursuit of of what we THINK will make us happy.
I think free will is an illusion.
But if that is so, then why do we feel we can hold people “responsible” for their choices and actions, if they had no control over their choices. And how do we then justify “punishing” someone for a “crime”?
“how do we then justify “punishing” someone for a “crime”?”
That one is easy.
All of us benefit if criminals are kept away from the rest of civilization—i.e., behind bars.
It does not matter “why” they do it—they should not be allowed to run loose causing havoc in civilized societies.
To add to my post—the reason why lions and tigers are kept in zoos instead of allowed to run loose down the street is not because they choose to be “bad” animals—it is because they do harmful things when they are loose.
We are not trying to rehabilitate them—we are just trying to protect human society.
:-)
Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, of his own free will, wrote a book denying humans have free will, and is now pimping that book for sales.
It's not that people don't have free will, it's that many are conditioned, especially from birth, to think without it. That conditioned thought is then reinforced constantly throughout their lives lest they break free.
“Neurobiologists investigate the structure, function, development, and pathology of the nervous system at different levels, ranging from molecules and cells to entire neural circuits and systems.”
I would consider this guy the same as a carpenter because he studies the physical parts of the house and how they work. But I won’t ask him what the brain says to them.
wy69
A new spin on an old theory. People are the product of their heredity and experience.
Of course there’s something to it but go... Uh, go rob a few banks and see how it works out for you.
Society has got to protect itself. People too.
Your first question has nothing to do with free will. We humans take the simplest thing and try to sound so philosophical and smart. Free will is having the ability to make a choice. Nothing more nothing less.
Placebos work because the subjects choose to take them and they believe they are taking something that works. The result is not because of free will, it is a result of free will (choosing to take the placebo). You’re talking about the after effects of free will.
“The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over. We’ve got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn’t there.”
Nonsense, of course, but one suspects that he's trying to convince people that our rights to Free markets, Free enterprise, Freedom of speech, and other rights we enjoy aren't bad and unneeded things, and that punishing criminals is unnecessary.
Free will or not, B.F. Skinner showed us that negative reinforcement produced the strongest learning response, behavior will be adjusted accordingly.
We do respond to stimuli. The problem is an all-or-nothing kind of thinking, accepting the illusion that we are only the product of our environment.
With the advance in cognitive psychology we are far beyond Skinner now.
It is more than happenstance that the two countries in which behaviorism flourished—the United States and the Soviet Union—are at least in theory the cradles of egalitarianism. “All men are created equal” and “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” were the ideological underpinnings of behaviorism as well as of the Amer¬ ican and Soviet political systems respectively.That is where things stood in 1965 when we prepared our counterattack against the behaviorists. We thought the behaviorist notion that it all comes down to rewards and punishments that strengthen associations was utter nonsense.
Heart disease. My doctor said blame your parents. There’s nothing you can do. The diet/exercise and prescriptions help but it really doesn’t matter.
Makes sense there so why not here? Adoption outside the gene pool will spoil the good genes in the siblings. Hillary’s solution was the village.
The doctor has a point. That’s what prisons are for. That and ICU units.
“...did you say that out of your own ‘free will’? Or did the chemicals in your brain impel you to say it? LMAO !!”
Exactly! If everything we do or say is determined by chemical reactions in our brains, then there can be no truth, only our reaction to external stimuli. That goes for this guy’s thoughts as well. The people who make these kinds of arguments always defeat themselves. And they do it periodically in every generation. CS Lewis wrote extensively on this subject 70 years ago, as I recall.
: virtually.
As they say, the devil is in the details.
It's basically a get out of jail free card for God: Yes we have free will so if we end up in Hell it's our fault and not God's, even though He decided before the beginning of time who the Elect would be and who wouldn't.
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