[Klein Helmer]

This is a fascinating talk from a personal hero of mine.

I'd be really interested to see what the Wrestling Forum makes of its contents.

I would prefer if people refrain from posting until they have watched the video, as I would like to limit the discussion to the specifics of Mr. Harris' talk.

In accordance with the rules, I will highlight some of the main points:

1. If The Universe is fully deterministic, every event that has ever occurred has been inevitable and inescapable. IE, anything that has ever happened, has happened exclusively as a result of the previous states of The Universe having been subjected to the Laws of Physics. As human beings can change neither the previous states of The Universe, nor the Laws of Physics, all of our thoughts and actions are as inevitable as the course a rock takes as it falls down a hill.

2. If The Universe contains elements of randomness in addition to being guided by determinism, this still provides no basis for Free Will, as we have as little control over this randomness as we have over previous states of The Universe and the Laws of Physics.

3. If Free Will is an illusion, we need to rethink entirely our approach to our criminal justice system. A dangerous criminal still needs to be locked up for the protection of society, but the ideas of punishment and retribution cease to make sense.

4. If Free Will is an illusion, as the concepts of punishment and retribution cease to make sense, so to do the concepts of wrath and hatred. One analogy he draws which I find particularly striking, is that of the difference between being maimed by a crocodile and being maimed by a psychopath. He asserts that our differing responses to these phenomena cease to make sense in light of the delusion of Free Will. He goes on to say that while we may more readily come to terms with the crocodile attack, perhaps even visiting the zoo and pointing the animal out to friends, the consuming wrath and hatred we may feel toward the psychopath would be baseless, as he was no more free to stop himself from attacking than was the crocodile. He contends that if any mentally healthy person were to switch places with the psychopath atom for atom, to have been subjected to whatever abusive situations were in his past, and/or the relentless transcription of his bad genes, there would be no extra part of them which would prevent them from being that same psychopath.

Enjoy:

 

[Lariat From Hell]

Wow, Klein. This is probably your best post ever. I had to speak bout this in my AP Psychology class a couple of weeks ago. A really interesting and complex topic. I'll watch the video soon.

 

[Klein Helmer]

Wow, Klein. This is probably your best post ever. I had to speak bout this in my AP Psychology class a couple of weeks ago. A really interesting and complex topic.

Thanks, man.

I appreciate it.

What were your thoughts on the matter?

 

[Klein Helmer]

I was starting to get upset that no one else had responded, but then I remembered that none of you had any choice in the matter...

*bump

 

[FITZ]

I think I remember reading about the concept that he had on free will. Basically he said that everything we do is just a response to external stimuli.

Honestly I found my discussion of it in school to be very aggravating because just about anything you can do can be attributed to you reacting to an external force. I'm not sure if I entirely buy into that though. There are minor things that I do that aren't a reaction to stimuli, at least none that I can think of. I shower every day. Some says I use shampoo first and other days I use the soap first. I can't explain why on some days I use the soap and others I use shampoo as I pretty much feel the same way every morning when I go into the shower.

On the other hand just about everything I do during the course of the day can be attributed to something. I stopped my car because the light was red, I ate because I was hungry, I ordered a sandwich at the cafeteria because the hot food didn't smell good.

Even big decisions can also be attributed to other factors that we don't have control over.

But after thinking about this for too long it just gets very frustrating to think about. And once you think it about too much you're totally screwed trying to find something you did with free will. Even if I just go and start doing crazy stuff that would just be attributed to the fact that I'm trying to prove that I do in fact have free will and my actions were in response to reading this thread.

 

[Karma101]

I've thought about this kinda thing a lot actually. It's actually led me to pity criminals, psychopaths and the like rather than hate them. It's also made me think that torture under any circumstances is plain wrong, punishment by death can still make sense in terms of putting someone out of their misery, but in terms of retributions it makes no sense.

 

[Lariat From Hell]

I think I remember reading about the concept that he had on free will. Basically he said that everything we do is just a response to external stimuli.

Honestly I found my discussion of it in school to be very aggravating because just about anything you can do can be attributed to you reacting to an external force. I'm not sure if I entirely buy into that though. There are minor things that I do that aren't a reaction to stimuli, at least none that I can think of. I shower every day. Some says I use shampoo first and other days I use the soap first. I can't explain why on some days I use the soap and others I use shampoo as I pretty much feel the same way every morning when I go into the shower.

On the other hand just about everything I do during the course of the day can be attributed to something. I stopped my car because the light was red, I ate because I was hungry, I ordered a sandwich at the cafeteria because the hot food didn't smell good.

Even big decisions can also be attributed to other factors that we don't have control over.

But after thinking about this for too long it just gets very frustrating to think about. And once you think it about too much you're totally screwed trying to find something you did with free will. Even if I just go and start doing crazy stuff that would just be attributed to the fact that I'm trying to prove that I do in fact have free will and my actions were in response to reading this thread.

This is basically how I feel about it. I usually try to not think about it due to the fact that it causes my head to begin to hurt. There are so many ways I can try and prove that I have free will, but that could very well be a way that it is just an illusion.

 

[ArabGuy]

Sure we react to external stimuli, but not before our cognition interprets this stimuli. It seems this vital stage was negated here.

I enjoy Dr William Lane Craig's take on this matter, and no I'm not a Christian.

I think this matter should be settled scientifically and is no longer an exclusively philosophical matter. The answer exists in the quantum mechanics world.

 

[FITZ]

I've thought about this kinda thing a lot actually. It's actually led me to pity criminals, psychopaths and the like rather than hate them. It's also made me think that torture under any circumstances is plain wrong, punishment by death can still make sense in terms of putting someone out of their misery, but in terms of retributions it makes no sense.

I really don't think this would impact the way I view anyone. I mean yeah, a lot of them are poor and have rough lives. But even with the idea that their actions are just reactions to the circumstances I feel like it's still their fault because they were responding in an unacceptable way. I also feel like the main purpose of prison is to protect society from the people that commit crimes. You can't rob a store when you're in prison.

This has actually made me think about the theory more. I mean the whole point is that all we do is react to stimuli but different people react differently to the same stuff. It's about how we perceive and interpret stimuli and our perceptions are subjective.

Is there really much if a difference in having free will and having a mind that interpret stimuli differently then every other person in the world?

 

[Panzer]

What about alternatives to prison? We've heard of some of them in theory. Some still involve prison. An offender would be given medicine that makes time seem to go slower thus prolonging a prison sentence or an offender's mind would be hooked to a prison simulation that makes them believe that 1,000 years have passed when only 1 year has passed in reality. Sounds worse than straight up prison to me.

Is subjugating a person's mind worse than subjugating their physical form? I think so.

 

[DocBlue]

I've always leaned heavily towards Behaviourism and ever since studying Psychology in college I've pretty much written off free will altogether as an illusion. Some people think that is a depressing way to look at things but I really don't think it changes anything for me. I truly believe that if you could control everything about a person's life, you could make them act however you want.

Great thread.

 

[Klein Helmer]

I think I remember reading about the concept that he had on free will. Basically he said that everything we do is just a response to external stimuli.

Honestly I found my discussion of it in school to be very aggravating because just about anything you can do can be attributed to you reacting to an external force. I'm not sure if I entirely buy into that though. There are minor things that I do that aren't a reaction to stimuli, at least none that I can think of. I shower every day. Some says I use shampoo first and other days I use the soap first. I can't explain why on some days I use the soap and others I use shampoo as I pretty much feel the same way every morning when I go into the shower.

On the other hand just about everything I do during the course of the day can be attributed to something. I stopped my car because the light was red, I ate because I was hungry, I ordered a sandwich at the cafeteria because the hot food didn't smell good.

Even big decisions can also be attributed to other factors that we don't have control over.

But after thinking about this for too long it just gets very frustrating to think about. And once you think it about too much you're totally screwed trying to find something you did with free will. Even if I just go and start doing crazy stuff that would just be attributed to the fact that I'm trying to prove that I do in fact have free will and my actions were in response to reading this thread.

Thank you for your response, I am sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you, but there was some confusion with my account and I was temporarily banned.

I would like to specifically address the highlighted portion of your post, as this seems to be the main area presenting you with difficulties as they pertain to accepting the delusion of free will.

As it happens, these seemingly arbitrary decisions, and how they function at the level of the brain, are actually more easily understood as purely resulting from causality than some of the items you described as larger, more significant choices.

Multiple studies have shown (most famously Benjamin Libet's work with electroencephalography) that when it comes to these smaller, seemingly arbitrary decisions, that a person's perception of a conscious decision arises (sometimes as many as five seconds) after the physical determining processes that can be observed at the level of the brain have taken place. This is, of course, an eternity in terms of neuroscience. This delay between our perception of having decided, and our brains having actually decided, indicates that in a sense, the present moment is already a memory. This means that there are times during which we believe ourselves to be free to choose, but events in the brain that will determine the choice have already been set in motion, and the freedom to choose has disappeared.

With regard to these sorts of choices, eg, the soap and shampoo scenario, the science is in, and it has been shown time and again through functional magnetic resonance imaging, and even direct recording of the cortices, that when it comes these sorts of decisions (let's say, selecting a red card or a blue card) that a scientist monitoring an individual's brain could know what the individual will do before he or she is aware of their own decision.

I'll try to get to everyone else's responses as soon as possible.

Thanks again, everyone.

 

[Klein Helmer]

I've thought about this kinda thing a lot actually. It's actually led me to pity criminals, psychopaths and the like rather than hate them. It's also made me think that torture under any circumstances is plain wrong, punishment by death can still make sense in terms of putting someone out of their misery, but in terms of retributions it makes no sense.

It's a tall order, particularly if one has been the victim of violent crime him or herself, but I think in our less impassioned moments, when we experience the greatest clarity, there really is no other way to see the world.

This is basically how I feel about it. I usually try to not think about it due to the fact that it causes my head to begin to hurt. There are so many ways I can try and prove that I have free will, but that could very well be a way that it is just an illusion.

Just enjoy the ride and embrace it!

Sure we react to external stimuli, but not before our cognition interprets this stimuli. It seems this vital stage was negated here.

I enjoy Dr William Lane Craig's take on this matter, and no I'm not a Christian.

I think this matter should be settled scientifically and is no longer an exclusively philosophical matter. The answer exists in the quantum mechanics world.

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but whatever it is you're calling cognition, is just as bound by either the rules of determinism, randomness, or some combination thereof as anything else in existence.

We often consider ourselves to be the authors of our thoughts, but if one takes only a moment to examine this proposition, its inaccuracy quickly becomes evident. Thoughts simply appear in our heads, the same way my words are appearing on this page. One has no more control over their next thought than my next sentence. There's a voice talking in our heads that just says things; and we can't choose them before we think them, else we would have had to think them before we thought them. And if we can't choose our thoughts, where is free will?

I've listened to some talks from Craig and I can't remember specifically his take on the matter, would you mind sharing your interpretation thereof?

With regard to the matter being settled scientifically, as I have previously stated, the wait is over and we needn't the help of quantum mechanics. EEG, FMRI, and direct scanning of the cortices have already reliably shown that physical processes in the brain precede the perception of having made a choice, and therefore, the choice was not freely made.

 

[Magic]

I've always leaned heavily towards Behaviourism and ever since studying Psychology in college I've pretty much written off free will altogether as an illusion. Some people think that is a depressing way to look at things but I really don't think it changes anything for me. I truly believe that if you could control everything about a person's life, you could make them act however you want.

Great thread.

I tend to agree with this.



We are essentially controlled from the start our lives, are we not? In most first world countries you're taught to go to school; told to go to college/university to advance your education and qualifications to land a better job; eventually you land a job/career to sustain yourself and pay off the debts and loans you've built up; and then you work the rest of your life until said debts/loans are paid off and you've saved enough money for retirement. That's the life of an average person and that's incredibly dull. Our "freedoms" have been severely hampered by all the restrictions we've put on them since the beginning of laws/rules. I know this doesn't exactly link back to the OP, but it sort of is what doc is saying in that it's not that hard to control people.


North Korea does it extremely well.

 

[insanitydefined]

With all due respect, the whole theory seems like a load of crap. Everybody has a choice in their lives, of course outside stimuli plays a huge part in how we develop as people, but to take away free will and the decisions we make in regards to that stimuli is ridiculous.

Sent from Verticalsports.com Free App

 

[Rick_James]

This shit is too deep, I used to debate the Ontological Argument way back in the day with Alvin Plantinga, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame, but man, I just don't have the interest in this stuff anymore lol.

 

[just1988]

I thought it was okay but I've not really seen it since I was a child. Then again, I'm not really a big fan of whales so I can't see myself ever sitting down to watch it again. Oh wait, I think I have mis-read the thread title...

 

[Klein Helmer]

I really don't think this would impact the way I view anyone. I mean yeah, a lot of them are poor and have rough lives. But even with the idea that their actions are just reactions to the circumstances I feel like it's still their fault because they were responding in an unacceptable way. I also feel like the main purpose of prison is to protect society from the people that commit crimes. You can't rob a store when you're in prison.

This has actually made me think about the theory more. I mean the whole point is that all we do is react to stimuli but different people react differently to the same stuff. It's about how we perceive and interpret stimuli and our perceptions are subjective.

Is there really much if a difference in having free will and having a mind that interpret stimuli differently then every other person in the world?

I think what's being suggested here is that it is not their (the criminals) "fault," in any traditional sense, for acting as they did. To say they could or should have acted differently, is to say they would have been a different person had they been a different person.

It seems that the moment an apparently inescapable cause for a behavior is recognized, all sense of culpability disappears.

Take for example a brain tumor:

If a man goes on a gun rampage, and is killed in the process, a common reaction would be hatred, and a sense that he deserved to have been killed. However, if an autopsy is later performed, and this man was found to have had a tumor pressing against the amygdalae regions of his brain, or any other areas associated with violence, it becomes apparent that he in fact had no control over his emotions or actions as they pertained to the violence that was generated at the level of his dysfunctional brain.

Mr. Harris argues that the instance of such a tumor is just a special, more readily recognizable case of individuals having no control over their actions. Neuroscience truly is in its infancy, and he contends that once we have a richer understanding of the brain and its inner workings, any thought or any action experienced or carried out by any individual will be as reliably traced back to its source as were the violent actions of the man with a brain tumor.

 

[Ruth]

I know some of these words

 

[WorldWrestlingFed]

In accordance with the rules, I will highlight some of the main points:

1. If The Universe is fully deterministic, every event that has ever occurred has been inevitable and inescapable.

That's easily refutable, when people do something, they Choose to do it. for example if I'm hungry, the hunger is is not controlled by me, but the act of eating is a choice, you can choose to not eat.

I don't know how anyone can dispute that fact.

IE, anything that has ever happened, has happened exclusively as a result of the previous states of The Universe having been subjected to the Laws of Physics.

Laws of physics, Laws require a Lawgiver(God)

As human beings can change neither the previous states of The Universe, nor the Laws of Physics, all of our thoughts and actions are as inevitable as the course a rock takes as it falls down a hill.

No, because thoughts can be changed upon choice, Free Will is one of the basic facts of life.

You actually show that Substance Dualism/Quantum Physics is correct, since all matter/atoms are under the Laws of Physics, and since under the laws of physics it would be inevitable, since our thoughts/choices/actions are not inevitable, our minds are not under the laws of physics, meaning we aren't physical.

Everything you do, you choose to do, the choices could be right(loving) or it could be wrong(harmful to others)

2. If The Universe contains elements of randomness in addition to being guided by determinism, this still provides no basis for Free Will, as we have as little control over this randomness as we have over previous states of The Universe and the Laws of Physics.

If universe contains elements of randomness then we would have no Laws of Physics, they're constants.

3. If Free Will is an illusion, we need to rethink

You can't think without Free Will, thinking requires free will.

entirely our approach to our criminal justice system. A dangerous criminal still needs to be locked up for the protection of society, but the ideas of punishment and retribution cease to make sense.

Woah, Retribution isn't punishment, in the Bible, punishment would be Restorative to teach someone not to harm again, not for retributive purposes. retribution itself is a sin that is punished(Love your enemies, Matthew 5:42-48, Matthew 7:12)

4. If Free Will is an illusion,

Proof? because reality shows us it exists, it's one of the basic facts of life.

as the concepts of punishment and retribution cease to make sense, so to do the concepts of wrath and hatred. One analogy he draws which I find particularly striking, is that of the difference between being maimed by a crocodile and being maimed by a psychopath. He asserts that our differing responses to these phenomena cease to make sense in light of the delusion of Free Will.

It does cease to make sense, seeing as without free will, a human wouldn't even be able to be maim someone, crocodiles however since they are not humans might not be conscious.(More like A.I., likely how God(YHWH) made it)

He goes on to say that while we may more readily come to terms with the crocodile attack, perhaps even visiting the zoo and pointing the animal out to friends, the consuming wrath and hatred we may feel toward the psychopath would be baseless,

So the no free will then just conflicts with reality, the wrath we feel towards the psychopath is because we know that they choose to do it, if there was no free will, he couldn't have done it.

as he was no more free to stop himself from attacking than was the crocodile.

Actually he can simply stop himself, if he didn't choose to do it then it wouldn't have happened, we're not robots, this is reality, we choose to do things.

He contends that if any mentally healthy person were to switch places with the psychopath atom for atom,

All Matter is the same so if we did switch places, we'd be no different, proving atoms do not determine what people choose, and that people aren't atoms, we're immaterial, proven via Quantum Physics and Substance Dualism.

Anyone who denies free will should be expelled from scientific community.

We have to stop living in the past, with outdated and refuted theories, and start using proven science such as Quantum Physics and Substance Dualism.

Stuff like this is why I can't take Sam Harris serious, basics of science and reality refute him.

He also lost a debate on Morality, he lost in his debate with William Lane Craig, he couldn't refute that morality is objective(no one can since it's proven that it's objective, meaning God(The Father and The Son and The Holy Spirit) exists),