Free Will (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, September 12, 2010, 21:45 (5185 days ago) @ romansh

Think about that. How could an unconscious will be "free will?" It is exactly this question that makes ME question how much free will I as a person actually have. 
> Frankly, I can't see any mechanism for will of any flavour being "free". So I don't need to hold the belief of will being free. Just because we "live" in our consciousness, I don't see the need to limit the definition to our conscious will. Not specifying consciousness as a requirement does not preclude it from my definition.-But my whole point is that you cannot reduce free will to a component that doesn't have consciousness. They are properties which go hand in hand. If you cannot actually separate them, than they must go together. Again, going back to triangles; you have these properties:-1. Three points.
2. Three lines connecting the three points together to form a contiguous shape. 
3. Interior angles at each point. -You can have four points, and as long as 2 and 3 are met, you can still have a triangle. But the moment you change 2 or 3, you no longer have a triangle. -Free will requires:-1. An agent capable of making choices. This necessarily dictates consciousness, but for the purposes of definition it must be stated explicitly. -
> If we have any firm evidence that our unconsciousnesses can (or cannot) be independent of the universe then I'd be happy to consider the conscious within the definition. Until then it remains an unnecessary constraint - in my opinion.
> 
> > The simplest form of Zen ...
> I think Buddhism may hold some interesting reflections on reality. But I'm ignorant when it comes to Buddhist teachings.
> 
> > To what extent can an unconscious will operate in this scenario? At best it can fire clouds past the mountain, but only the mountain is the final arbiter. Think of why your body shuts down motor action while you sleep: because it knows that the unconscious will is dangerous. Everyone from Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Freud, and Jung all have guarding philosophies against those functions that seem to be unconscious. 
> 
> I would not be "me" without mine. -Maybe you mistake what I was saying here? I was simply pointing out that all of these philosophies stress some kind of conscious control over our unconscious will. In all scenarios this dictates the unconscious must be at least at some instances, a subservient part of our psyche. -> 
> > This exercise so firmly ties together consciousness and free will that I do not see how you could possibly separate them. 
> 
> I would seem so - but this is purely an anthropic interpretation. -How? Consciousness/Free Will are two things that we have only ever attributed to human beings. Human beings at minimum have Consciousness; and without it we would be no different than any other ape, incapable of symbolic reasoning and unable to affect our environment. It isn't anthropic, it's an observation!-> Does any atom or fundamental particle, behave in a way that is independent of the universe. Do any collection of molecules behave independently of the universe? Does any immensly complicated collection of molecules behave independently? I don't actually see this happening and I can see no reason to assume the universe behaves in this way. 
> -You're talking about something different than Free Will. Define "independently," this has many connotations. I recognize that I exist because farmers grow and kill my food, people work on oil rigs to supply my car manufactured by other human beings... that I can put on a coat and use fire to keep myself warm in climates that would be otherwise hostile. We aren't independent, but we still make choices: I started college as a pharmacy major and ended up in computer science. That was a conscious choice, and I had the freedom to choose it. -> Call it determinism, materialism, physcalism, naturalism - whatever - I see no reason to assume my particular complex collection of molecules is independent of the universe either. In fact the boundary between the universe and me is likely illusory as well. It's what I decide to define it.-You know more about Buddhist philosophy than you say.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"