Authoritarianism

How does that prove that we choose from undetermined possibilities? Free will is not in the bible, yet every character in every novel we've ever read thought that they had a free will. I have no good reason to believe that we choose from undetermined possibilities.

 

What do you mean by...Free will is not in the bible. I just showed you the Bible location.

Can you at least provide a link to at least one other source
that agrees with this strange concept of yours?
Please show me something that's even close to this idea..."The ultimate expression of pride is the belief in "free will"."

 

No, the bible makes no mention of free will. Does a novel character not "love with their whole heart"? What does "loving with your whole heart because you want to" prove? The only mention of "free will" in the bible is in reference to a particular type of offering called a free-will-offering.

 

Are we not given the choice to follow a god or the teachings of a god?
Unless something is forced upon us, don't we have a right to choose?
Isn't that free will? Does the Bible say we do not have free will?
Please provide a link that helps to understand why you say we do not have free will. I really don't understand the movie references

 

Yes, we are given choices just as novel characters are given choices. Choice is not evidence of chance.

"Free will" is not a biblical term. "Free will" is not in the bible.

 

I don't think that people choose to follow a god. It is often a function of one's upbringing. After all you don't see a lot of Hindus popping up in a Christian dominated community, just like you don't see a lot of Christians popping up in Hindu countries. One does not choose one's friends and lovers as much as one either likes certain people in certain ways, or they don't, it is not a choice. It either is or isn't.

 

Thank you for correcting my misinformation. What my google search gave me was actually a Jehovah Witness interpretation of a Bible quote
with chapter and verse designation attached. But according to Wikipedia, the concept of free will seems to be an ongoing debate.
So regardless of which interpretation you prefer, isn't free will still a matter of opinion?

 

I don't care what you call it, but sign me up for that.

 

The belief in free will is our "factory setting" our "default position". A belief in free will is as ubiquitous among us as it is among novel characters. Every novel character in every novel you and I have ever read also believed that they had a free will. Neither the belief in free will or the fact that we make choices are evidence that we choose from undetermined possibilities.

 

We need to root out and destroy authoritarianism from both parties. It has no place in a free society.

 

Why should we be constrained by gravity? The market is what it is and f#$king with it by regulation ALWAYS yields a less optimal solution.

 

Fair question and I am going to use an anecdote by way of an explanation and then put it into context.

Way too many decades ago I was at a talk given by my load police chief. He pointed out that Miranda rights were a SELF INFLICTED regulation that the cops brought upon themselves by their abuse of the Constitutional rights of the people that they were dealing with. He said the same thing about warrants and he was absolutely correct because cops had been in the habit of conducting searches and seizures without even bothering to knock before entering.

The EXACT SAME reason applies to ALL corporate regulations. They are SELF INFLICTED because some or other corporation had violated the rights or property of others. The EPA only came into existence because corporations were POLLUTING our environment in pursuit of PROFITS first and foremost. People were being EXPLOITED by being made to work long hours for a pittance under the threat of losing their jobs.

Regulations are a necessary evil because corporations are INCAPABLE of "self regulation".

The only thing that stands between you and your being mercilessly exploited by corporations is the government of We the People.

Without that we are just peasants to be worked to the bone and tossed out into the cold to starve to death when we can no longer work.

 

True

Not sure that the head count supports the argument against free will.
Even one choosing not to follow the crowd will suffice.

But the application of the ones and zeros is still a function of their programming.
Whether it is or isn’t is still a function of one's upbringing.
Are there not beliefs, likes or dislikes you held as a child, that changed as you grew older?

 

So then a person is born as a Democrat or born as Republican?

 

People make choices, but they do not choose from undetermined possibilities. Choice is not evidence of chance. Republican and democrat are choices.

 

Is this the concept you are engaging?

"Determinism suggests that only one course of events is possible, which is inconsistent with the existence of free will thus conceived.[3] Ancient Greek philosophy identified this issue,[4] which remains a major focus of philosophical debate."

 

Sort of. Studies have shown that under certain circumstances, brain functions are different between liberals and conservatives. So much so that one's political leanings can be determined with brain scans, with about 80% accuracy. Other studies suggest that many boys begin to exhibit traits of being a liberal or conservative in elementary school, before kids are really aware of political differences.

Then there is the matter of memory. Somewhere around 2/3rds to 3/4ths of people can be relatively easily led to believe things that aren't true. To remember things that never happened.

 

Good Q. I could look it up in the dictionary but I'm afraid that route leads to singular interpretation . Surely has to be a personal interpretation . In the UK the word ' Liberty ' is not referenced as in the USA. The most common phrase over here containing the word is when someone is ' accused of taking liberties ' a misuse I'm sure . How do I acquire the Liberty you speak of, can I buy it ?,do I have to earn it?, should it be given to me ?, indeed, do I take it or do I have to give it away. I'd appreciate your view.

 

Being neither a liberal or a conservative, I would be interested in see these studies and just what of "liberal traits" and "conservative traits".

 

I do not believe in that we choose from undetermined possibilities. I have no reason to, but I have plenty of reasons to believe that we are contingent in our being.

 

Do you think they would find the same functional differences in the infant brain?

Still you can't rule out environmental conditioning as a variable.

Lol. Yes "alternative facts" are popular these days.
But that still seems akin to a programming bug, not a design error.

 

"A contingent proposition is neither necessarily true nor necessarily false.Wikipedia
In that's true, I guess there is really nothing left to discuss. It's simply a matter of opinion.

 

As the philosopher said, as he was dying, "I know nothing necessarily".
Everything we know we know contingently. We don't know anything necessarily. We come to know, come to emote, come to choose. come to be and not be. We are contingent in our being. We are complex of intellectual, emotional, willful and corporeal processes. A process is a prescribed sequence of changes. We are defined by our changes, and anything subject to change is subject. It is not-sovereign, not-necessary. It is contingent in its being. Furthermore, by definition, if contingent being exists, necessary being must exist.

 

Being as I'm a hardware designer, the only professional coding I have done is machine code, or Assembler, as I am not creating programs, but rather giving functionality to a machine, at the machine level. However I have always liked Lisp to write quick and easy programs for myself. I can also code in C++, which seems to work best for writing programs to run in Windows.

The thing I find rather interesting is that a great deal of artificial intelligence has been programmed with Lisp. I'm not exactly sure why. But Lisp is rather unique in computer languages. It may have something to do with the fact that it was developed rather early in computer evolution. Currently, one of the basic rules of programming is that program code is seperate from data. They exist in different parts of memory and in seperate files. Compilers, translators and operating systems all have in place safeguards to prevent the mixing of instructions with data.

Lisp allows you to violate this rule. A Lisp program, if programmed to do so can alter its own code and create new, seperate Lisp programs. Thus, a program, with sufficient complexity, could learn, and rewrite its own code to represent that learning. A central thought that pops up from time to time time, in my line of work, is more of an intelligent machine, rather than artificial intelligence.

 

Very interesting.