He thinks free will exists

Do you know what beneficial means?

You could go as far as saying that because people have no free will, they are merely a victim of circumstances and can't be held morally responsible for their actions since they were not the cause of those actions. This in turn, can make you think twice about your feelings towards individuals which are then based on actions they could not inherently control. It also leaves some interesting questions on which grounds we can justify punishing people for their actions, since retributive punishment seems quite hollow (for this reason among others). This is a crude way of explaining it, but some interesting thoughts about this subject have been written.

It doesn't take free will for me to do any action, why would an internal brain action be any different just because it is self-regarding. Furthermore, the free will aspect comes from the free will somehow being the cause of itself or at least being undetermined. Your objection doesn't hold.

Define free will.

actually what i meant was the opposite. it's disadvantageous to think you don't have free will since it will make you feel like you're a victim instead of having the outlook that you can change things you're not happy with. wether one or the other is true doesn't really matter. just think you do have some controle if you don't want to fall into nothing and spend the rest of your life depressed.

I'll admit that the debate surrounding free will and determinism is constantly bogged down in definitions of terms such as 'agent', 'determinism', and 'free will'.

However, I do maintain that the only free will worth having is when free will is the unmoved mover and the primum mobile of an action. In order for a will to be free, it has to be either the causa sui or undetermined. The free agent, therefore, would be the one who is independent of causes by which he is moved. In this sense, I don't believe the will is free or the agent is free.

This is more or less Holbach's definition, but I feel the compatibilist notion of free will being defined as absence of constraints, with more compatibilists leaning towards external constraints is not nearly as valuable as the free will I suggested earlier. This seems to me to be simply muddling with words in order to make them fit your definition. Even this version of free will arguably doesn't exist, since the external constraints are no different than the internal constraints which are determined and therefore beyond one's influence.

>I posted it again

There is no free will.
There is the "user illusion" because we all make sensible choices given our background etc. etc.
If you don't know what motivates you, you're not really free. Determinism is total and absolute, the only choice a person can make is to adopt a methodical approach. See Spinoza.

>he thinks unfree will exists

I'll define it as "given the ability to return X years to the past, everything being the same, could you have done any differently?"

My answer is no. If you mean something else by free will, define it and I might agree with you.

I'm not the dude you replied to but I agree with him so far. I use this definition because it tends to be the most common one people apply when talking about free will (laymen at least).

If only this guy took psychology as serious as his ideas.

Any academic who say free will doesnt exist , i think is just using it as a marketing trick.
They are booksellers not authors.

Philosophy doesnt happen in a vacuum.

Free Will does exist. But you guys are too blind to see it. You are argueing it from a syllogostic analytical standpoint. And no one has so far tbough to talk about the psychology behind free will. Suprising seeing as how /x/ would be all about mindful meditation and stuff.
So here it goes
Consiousness: There are two levels of consiouness , refered to here to just mean waking state. There is low consiouness, which takes care of your routines and schemas. Kinda the stuff you dont really need to concentrate much to think about. This state you produce waves , and this is where advertisers want you so they can appeal to your more automatic desires.
High level of consiouness has to deal with those times you think hard to make a decision, try to solve a difficult problem, or try to learn something new. When people talk of being mindful, this is the high consiouness state. Sometimes manic ,delusional, or panicky mind states represent this as well. Traumatic expierences to incite periods of high consiousness.
The point here is that some people consider "free wont" to be proof of free will. That a person could deny himself food when he ferls hungry must mean we have free will. But this is only part of it.
The big misunderstanding about free will to, an underlying assumtion that most people debating this subject is that if it "FREE" will it must vome easy right?
That where i think they are wrong. To make a free choice takes alot of effort. The will must be exterted, can we choose when we can exert the will? Yes. Take meditation, do dialiectical behavior therapy. All evidenced based practices proven to work and help people deal with anxiety, depression, and even psychosis.
People forget what Nietzche is trying to say with the ubermensch. But essentialy, it is suffering through the obsticles of oppression to become free.

>However, I do maintain that the only free will worth having is when free will is the unmoved mover and the primum mobile of an action.
The only free will worth having is psychological freedom.

Admittedly you cosplay very well as mr philosophant and your arguments are very good but I urge you to leave your bubble and realize free will is a psychological matter through and through. It is choosing between banana and coconut. And that is worth having. It's not as sublime as a metaphysical space fairy free will, but when I say I want a banana instead of a coconut and I get it that's my free will being satisfied.

Here's a flowchart: I want it. Because I want it it is my will. Because I wasn't coerced, it is my free will.

>Oh but you don't know if you reeeeeeally want it maybe you're not the decision maker
Not relevant to primates. No part of our existence needs to play unmoved mover. Look at people and their problems. What's relevant is do you want the banana. That is as free as you're gonna get. You can call it unfree because it boils down to bodily functions but that is merely a play on words. You could call it anything.
The human psyche transcends words aimed at evoking mental and emotional associations aimed at making me respond in context coercing me with your depreciated context of mr philosophant speak, it's fading glory and my implied humiliation if I don't respond in proper context.

It's 2017, no one cares.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awareness
nobaproject.com/modules/states-of-consciousness
apa.org/helpcenter/willpower.aspx

ITT: No one has read Foucault outside of a cursory glance at Wikipedia. They dislike him because Peterson told them to. This guy especially.

>They dislike him because Peterson told them to.
A-actually it was Paglia A-user senpai...

I like Paglia and Foucault. Foucault is really underrated by people who hate him and butchered and misread by those who love him.

If you want Foucault read right read Agamben and Sloterdijk.

Peterson is a hack.

checked

>Admittedly you cosplay very well as mr philosophant
I'm just trying to be as clear as possible. No need to start out with some half-baked personal attack. This is just the position I'm arguing from. In the end only metaphysical free will in the most encompassing way, as the free will being a causa sui or at least undetermined, is valuable since any free will that is less than this, such as psychological free will, is derived from the greater notion of free will.

>Because I want it it is my will. Because I wasn't coerced, it is my free will.
This notion has some practical value but it completely ignores the more encompassing notion of free will. The latter simply doesn't exist. This may not have practical implications like the absence of psychological free will would have, but it's true none the less.

>It's 2017, no one cares.
>Not relevant to primates. No part of our existence needs to play unmoved mover.
This line of reasoning and your entire post is basically saying that because it has no direct practical purposes no one should even bother with these kinds of philosophical questions or concepts. This doesn't make the questions any less interesting however and also isn't quite the objection you make it out to be.

Does Peterson have a problem with free will, I don't read the guy.

I know Peterson claims to be a follower of Nietzche a guy that insisted in Geneology of Morality that free will only came into existence as a concept in ordre to make people feel guilt and thus control them with morality ie "You CHOOSE to do that. Because you had the freedom not to, it makes you evil. You should instead choose to be good, here is a list of commandments which are good to follow."

Pretty reminiscent of Nietzsche desu, just pulling facts about the nature and history of consciousness out of your ass and using them to support fantastical conclusions. 3/10

>I'm just trying to be as clear as possible.
You constrain yourself into acting out a role that you personally find noble but which is ultimately a dead end. I am too intellectually advanced to enter such a passe frame of reference such as philosophenspeak.

My free will > your free will.

>In the end only metaphysical free will in the most encompassing way, as the free will being a causa sui or at least undetermined, is valuable since any free will that is less than this, such as psychological free will, is derived from the greater notion of free will.

Nietzche doesn't have a problem with free will per se, he just had a problem with all attempts at justifying its existence that he was aware of. peterson himself is a believer in free will and this does not make him at odds with nietzsche because he posited his own justifications for it (don't ask me what they are I completely forget)

...

I actually I do. I even read him in French (because I'm French). He's right about everything I've read so far though.

>He doesn't understand the appeal of no responsibility

No responsibility but no good/evil objectivity either.

The perfect man embodies Atlas.

And who is embodied through the perfect cat?

...

but consciousness is not material

No, genuine question. If your thought system can't handle the fast a "perfect human" makes as much sense as a "perfect cat" ergo you can't deal with the fact humans are a part of nature instead of mysterious beings.

It 100% is, have you been living under a rock for the past 50 years ?

>It 100% is

where did you hear this, a neil degresse tyson vid?

French university of Lille 1 actually. It's widely accepted around the world consciousness and general thought/perception stems from electrical activity in neural networks that build up our brain/spine.

>French university of Lille 1 actually

I don't care about your overpriced education. Save the appeal to authority for retards like yourself.

>It's widely accepted around the world

No it is not.

Because it's the truth. You may as well say you support censorship because if the public knew what's "really" going on something bad would happen.

>No, genuine question. If your thought system can't handle the fast a "perfect human" makes as much sense as a "perfect cat" ergo you can't deal with the fact humans are a part of nature instead of mysterious beings.

What?
"Normal cats" are incapable of being anything but cats.
The human brain is the most complex thing in the universe. Even so "my" point wasn't about mysticism.
There is free will, it's just that humans aren't made up of 'one' will.

My point was a man doing nothing but indulging his short term desires will die miserable. Probably living miserable as well, cause he's not living up to his "potential", or even truly trying. Potential as in living a life that he can die with dignity for himself.

>There is free will, it's just that humans aren't made up of 'one' will.
What do you mean then? That there are different forces acting against one another? If you mean it like the need to breathe being the most important, followed by the need to drink etc. it would result in a dynamic yet predictible system, so no free will to be found.

I'm not that guy but you're being a complete retard
>where did you hear this, a neil degresse tyson vid?
(implying he has no credible source)
>I don't care about your overpriced education. Save the appeal to authority for retards like yourself.
(calls him a retard for actually having a credible source)

Free will in my eyes is the ability to choose between things we desire, what we desire changes and we often desire contradictory things.
You know Freud? Sure he got a shit ton of shit wrong, but it was never absolutely wrong.
Ever heard about Hippocampus? We can refuse it, sure if we never do what we need to survive "it" will eventually overpower "us".
Free will is the ability to not eat the tasty cake you really want to eat. It is hard, really hard. Point is we can. We can exercise it (not as in work out, but I guess we can do that too), mostly people don't on a daily basis. And I guess it requires high intelligence.

The concept of free will implies that when you take a certain course of action, you could've imply chose another, but that would be phisically impossible, our ideas don't come from a black void, whatever desition you will take depends on forces outside of your "control"

...

>there are people itt that need free will to feel like they actually have power
>they don't know that not believing in free will makes you more powerful
>yfw you realize that 'free will' is just an idea rooted in the executive part of the brain to coerce other parts of the brain into acting in unison
>yffw you realize that it is all just power politics of the brain's separate parts
>YOUR FUCKING FACE WHEN you realize Foucault was actually somewhat right
>tfw you experience the revelation that you can use your critical facilities to better manipulate your own behavior, thoughts, habits, and personality by modifying internal and external factors through use of self coercion
>yfw my post has equipped the rational part of your brain with a means of greater controlling the other parts of your brain and your behavior itself
Free will fags, get fucked

>paying lot of money
>French uni

>>The concept of free will implies that when you take a certain course of action,
only rationalists claim that their little mental proliferation relate to the senses

>"credible source"
>le argument from authority
You're too stupid to be here, or anywhere for that matter. Leave.

>instead of having the outlook that you can change things you're not happy with
That's retarded.
Your desire to change things also stem from your past experiences and your own constitution.
Acknowledging that doesn't mean you renounce to act upon it.

>he thinks its non existence isnt a full confirmation of it

>"where did you learn that?"
>guy answers
>"I don't care!"
wew

>It 100% is, have you been living under a rock for the past 50 years ?
So we can control the flow of iones that initiate the action potentials by ourselves then, you drooling fucking moron?

...

As I said, there's free-will. The brain isn't just one will. Free-will might be the wrong word, but the point is the same.
Each part do not communicate with each other directly.
In fact you can have people with "split" brains, they still act and think of themselves as one person. Even when right and left brain has zero communication.

Seriously read/study some psychology and neuroscience.
If you could have your brain wired up in a way so if you press a button your brain releases all the happy hormones, I doubt most people would. That's literally what drug addiction is. Yet most people don't do this.

If you were right, nobody would suffer now for rewards net year. Your hippocampus hates it, our subconscious would never suffer if it was in control.

Google Quantum cognition.
Just google probability/quantum physics for that matter.
Even if you knew every particles current behavior and function, you wouldn't be able to predict the future.

>paid money to attend a state funded university
Hopefully it's some form of reverse bait

No, you have no control over it. It's called neural impulses but it happens all the time, it's also called thought, consciousness, but also perception, senses, feelings etc. etc.

I'd tell you to kill yourself for being this retarded with your reductionism to think literally everything is in the neural impulses, but you can always bail by saying how you have no free will, thus no control over anything, so you can't do it even if you want to, so it would be a waste of time.

...

meant for

>le quantum physigz disproves determinism meme

The question is about whether or not our brain actions are mechanical, not if they are deterministic. Physical determinism have nothing to do with that question.

I'm saying there is only one thing you can do, and that is to acknowledge you have very little control over the choices you make. Instead of relying on raw perception or preconceived thoughts, you can through reason make sure never to be wrong. Idk, read up some Spinoza online, something like On the Improvement of the Understanding by Spinoza

It's not quantum physics.
But how our brain acts in a "similar" way to quantum particles.
They use quantum, cause there's no other word for it

Mechanical and deterministic are the same thing.
If an thing doing the same thing and it doesn't result in the same result every time, it's not mechanical.
Or do you mean mechanical as in there's no freewill cause brain is made of matter or "parts"?

To add to this.
Consciousness/brain is more than the sum of its parts.

>Mechanical and deterministic are the same thing.
I'm sorry but you're wrong breh.
Atoms of fissile matter popping up according to a random distribution described by quantum physics is mechanical but not deterministic.

Besides, your neurons randomly firing because of some physical dice rolls do not constitute "free will", this is absurd.

>They use quantum, cause there's no other word for it
Sounds an awful lot like "I can't back it up but trust me guys"

>"Mechanical and deterministic are the same thing."
>quantum MECHANICS
>not deterministic
really sizzled my onions

I use mechanical as in the cogs in a clock, an "engineering" perspective. It's the only place I would use it. Something mechanical acts the same way every time. Our brain does not.

>Besides, your neurons randomly firing because of some physical dice rolls do not constitute "free will", this is absurd.
That's "exactly" what it means.
Except I would say, as I've already sort of said:
Our brain is made up of bunch of parts that do not communicate directly to each other. Something needs to decide between the impulses they give you. That is "free" will.

Even if you give a human brain the exact same stimulus, under the "exact same" circumstances, it won't give same result.
We can choose to suffer.

And as I've also said. Most people do not choose and just act. It's very hard to choose what "you" truly wish.
I'd say freewill is predicated on having a calm surrounding and your base needs set. Then the will to suffer.

>Our brain does not.
Brain plasticity is a fairly deterministic concept that can easily be modeled like ant trails that self reinforce or cull themselves.

>Even if you give a human brain the exact same stimulus, under the "exact same" circumstances, it won't give same result.
sauce needed
there are very little quantum effects in water at 300°K

Yes but I didn't choose to believe it, now fuck off. These threads are horrible.

>I use mechanical as in the cogs in a clock, an "engineering" perspective. It's the only place I would use it. Something mechanical acts the same way every time. Our brain does not.
lel
so radioactivity is not mechanical according to your retarded definition

If you can freely say that free will doesn't exist, you've just proven that free will does, in fact, exist simply by exerting your *will* or ideology, value, belief, choice, etc

>implying
I meant, I misunderstood what he meant with mechanical you fucktard
And that denies "freewill" how?
It just changes your will, plural.
I'm arguing the ability to choose between two equally attractive proposals. Not manufacture your own proposals. That we can't do. Maybe with a week of rigorous thought.

You don't even understand what's being discussed. I suggest you refrain from further input and read instead.

>two equally attractive proposals
You don't choose things because you like them, it's more of a you like them because you choose them. It's a post-choice rationalization that eventually defines your being, what people call the hexis/habitus if you read Bourdieu

You often make a choice before you "declare" it.
Sometimes people use that as denying freewill, dunno how that makes sense.
Dunno if this is right one.
jstor.org/stable/40062861?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
TL:DR The "sure thing principle of rational decision theory". Isn't always such a sure thing. It is most of the time/we have predictable behavior. But it seems our brains CAN choose "not to". As in some statistical experiment result in random results in majority of results...
Could just be the flaw of mechanical function the brain from being so large.
I argue that's what consciousness/freewill is.
Like a side effect of too many neurons.

You don't really "make" a choice as much as you weigh the pros and cons, there isn't much of your personality in it, that's all there is to say. Of course you can only gauge things through your own perceptions but it still means it's deterministic. Your choices are as personal as CIV IV AIs' are.

I was under the impression we were discussing, broadly, free will. Did I miss something?

Is a robot stating he's a robot free? Is a robot stating he isn't a robot free either? We are meat robots following the laws of physics and biology, thus sociology makes sense.

Sociology is usually informed by the field of social sciences and humanities. I'm not sure how studying natural science helps us understand anything beyond biological causes.

It does on the individual level. What spinoza described as affects and conatus.

Yeah, but we're the only animal, as far as we know, that CAN weigh the pros and cons, and even choose the con, seemingly, "just cause". Or at least irrationally to no ones benefit at all and the decision-makers detriment, except for perhaps curiosity's sake.

Perhaps you can say freewill is nothing more than the result of hippocampus "not being needed". The result being conflicting wills. Freewill is the ability to randomly pick on of those wills.
As I've said in almost every post.
Most of the time our Hippocampus choose for us, sometimes our Amygdala does.
Am I the only one who has felt the desire, almost overwhelming me, pulling me to do something, yet not doing it? Or at best "holding off". That is what freewill is.
Call it "the ability to pause the clockwork of our minds" so new satisfying impulses can emerge instead of the one that was.
>I really want that cookie. No cookie!
Have you ever tried hurting yourself? (Like testing blood pressure by yourself) Man your entire being tries to stop *you*. It's almost impossible.

Whenever I encounter someone arguing there is no free will (which is hilarious in and of itself) I find that , just like the foes of Global Warming that fly private jets 5,000 miles to a conference on reducing CO2 emissions, they do not live as if they believe it.
They own lobbying firms where they spend money to change people's' minds; they are proud of their own academic achievements; they vote; they are very concerned about crime; etc.
The greatest argument for free will is the incoherence of those who preach against it.

Thanks for clarifying. I'd like to do a comparative analysis between Spinoza and Plato's Theory of Forms.

I'm sure you'd find Spinoza makes a very nice ontologic synthesis between Platonician theories and the Hegelian idealism. Slavoj Zizek also developed a concept called Parallax that is IMO very interesting in order to nuance that synthesis. I could develop more but it's about overcoming the object/subject false dichotomy.

>he thinks free will doesn't exist

aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/free_will.html

>aynrandlexicon
Probably the best argument there is for hard determinism.
Ayn Rand's philosophy can be summed up as "rich people are vertuous because they became free when they decided to be rich" or some other asinine nonsense

Ayn Rand is like Freud.
Wrong in details, but right holistically.
She has good points, she just argues them poorly.

To just throw everything someone says cause a portion of what they say is bullshit, I'd say that is very dumb.

She has no good points

Not familiar with Hegelian idealism specifically, but I'm going to check that out