Do we have free will? I have been kicking this idea for a while

>>19119855
The only thing you're controlled by is nigger dick

>>19119855
A very difficult debate, as everyone as their own meaning as to what free will is.

The whole concept of it however seems rather flawed and pointless. If we are slaves to our instincts and genes, instead our actions slaves to us, what will you do with this information? Did it really change anything? It's tiresome to think about. After all, does philosophy bake bread?

>>19119936
For a human to realize it is not the sentient being it thinks it is, I think would be at least a little bit astonishing.

>>19119855
If free will is an illusion, explain suicide. Have you ever seen a bug or animal willing kill itself? As in not out of stupidity to not knowing about dangers such as fire, or a window pane, etc, but taking an action to harm itself?

Humans induce self harm constantly. I beleive that is a sign of free will.

>>19119855
We may have free will, we may not. The best course of action is to live our life as though we do. What else can we do?

>>19119971
True! It does not matter much in the end.

>>19119968

I have went though demonic attack/harassment and they told me things that would happen 15ish years before they did. At the time i was an atheist and i thought i was going crazy and tried to ignore the stuff thinking i was going crazy. 15ish years later i had completely forgotten about the series of demonic attacks i went though when i was attacked again.

Even as an atheist i knew it was spiritual and it scared the fuck out of me and i ended up becoming a Christian. But as for what happened to me... i looked into it and they say only God knows the future and demons dont. But i have heard other stories about people contacting demons though ouija boards and being told how they would die and it happened.

So from personal experience i would say no there is no such thing as free will. I think we are living in some kind of simulation that just as to play it's self out for some reason. If the bible is the word of God how else would you explain end of days/revelation?

>>19119968
Why couldn't that be a flaw though? Just like a mosquito flies to a lamp that's gonna effectively kill him, why couldn't certain brains be flawed enough to react in self harm/suicide under certain circunstances? To me this is actually a big sign humans act less rational than we think we do, what rational thinking being would choose to harm and damage itself or even commit suicide?

>>19119855
I want to believe so but I am beginning to doubt it. From what I understand our conscious "mind" is nested within our unconscious which itself is nested within our body. Things move up from the body, into our unconscious, are filtered, and then find their way to us. In many ways you can think of the layer between our body and our conscious mind as a dream, it constructs the world we occupy and works with the conscious mind which spends a lot of time making after the fact rationalizations for decisions made by the body. I don't think its all just rationalization though because our body does not do the same thing. We, our conscious mind, is able to analyze the data, learn, and apply that knowledge so we make different decisions in the future.

From the Universal point of view, no. From the human point of view, yes.

The character in the story plays the role of having free will. It is, to that character, as real as it seems. The story, though, has already and always been written. The character is finished. Everything has already happened.

>>19120046
You can teach tricks to a dog, thus meaning the dog is able to analize data and learn a new behavior, is that same dog a conscious rational being because of the fact he managed to learn something?

File: blacklab.jpg (102KB, 736x980px) Image search: [Google]

102KB, 736x980px

>>19120059
Maybe not to the same degree as a human but yeah. My labrador is incredibly intelligent and better company than most people. I was just trying to emphasize that I think our conscious mind is more than just our body tell a story to itself, although I do think that is a big part.

>>19120069
Sounds great, you should have him do your taxes as well.

File: IMG_2648.jpg (1MB, 2448x3264px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 2448x3264px

>>19120069

I love this lab and yeah they're extremely smart. I think we need to turn this into the intelligent dogs thread

>>19120015
>which
Well said. A lot of food for thought here.

Im an Engineer by trade but grew up with a presbetarian christian southern mother and a shia muslim persian father. I have an odd PoV

>>19119855
"free will" is a moot point. Our entire existence is pretermined by the state and configuration of immeasurable quantum particles. Everything that will ever happen has already been completely determined. Our choices, however predetermined they may be, are still our own, though. While in the great scheme of things "free will" is meaningless, it's also reasonable to say we have "functional" free will. The immeasurability of quantum particles means that we have no way of KNOWING the future with certainty, so personally I think we might as well act as if we have free will. Worrying too much about this kind of thing only brings depression.

File: tmp_9024-14964244548441712414711.jpg (10KB, 240x202px) Image search: [Google]

10KB, 240x202px

>>19120056
Basically this.

Spoiler warning: the following text in this post, and in the subsequent post may not be suitable for people exploring a reality experience without free will. This text is "red pill" information--please read responsibly.

That said, every moment is written as if it were always inevitible. However, these predetermined story lines occasionally intersect at points of paradox. From within the perspective of a person encountering a point of paradox, it is impossible to tell which fate leads from which possible history that led to that moment, and so it is possible to alter to a different story line. Only the person altering this way notices the difference, when their recollection of the history they remember differs from the history of the story line they are familiar with, because the only way points of paradox can exist is at a moment when story lines with different histories and fates are indistinguishible from one another in that moment, from the perspective of the person observing that story line. This is physically possible, because environments and the other people within them operate with the same determinacy as the person encountering a point of paradox within that physical environment.

(Continued in subsequent post...)

>>19120214
(Continued from previous post...)

Although it is not physically possible to predict which possible history leads to which fate from within a point of paradox, it is possible to enhance or diminish the rate at which a person encounters points of paradox as measured by their personal sense of time. This rate of encountering points of paradox, call it paradox flux, is enhanced when a person focuses their awareness on recent memory, and does not establish physical cause-effect chains that lead from the past to the present. Likewise, paradox flux can be diminished by successively planning memories before they occur, guiding a person's consciousness along an increasingly straight story line.

By merely controlling paradox flux alone, it is possible to navigate a dimensional environment. You can think of it like a remote control with a single button--do you want to continue focusing on this exact moment, or not? Press memorize for yes, let go of it for no. With this single button remote control, you can theoretically navigate to any possible story line in existence, including the story lines where you do not remember how to navigate environments this way--or if you prefer having free will, then there are those environments where you do remember how to navigate this way.

The only way to not have free will is to forget that you have it. The only way to have free will is to remember that you do.

Nobody knows what's in your memory but you.

free will goes in hand with predetermination, and is arguably the bigger topic.

whether you actions were a conscious decision or not doesn't seem as important as if that decision would have actually changed anything, no?

Proverbs 16:9
A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.
Proverbs 16:1
The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.
Jeremiah 10:23
O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
Romans 9:18
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
I don't see how we could have free will. I could be mistaken, but think: Did Judas have free will? He had to do what he did so that God's Word could be manifest.
Proverbs 16:4
The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Any thoughts?

>>19119855

You're currently trapped in Gehenna because your free will murders you if you step out.

Romans 10:13
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Ephesians 2:8-10
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his worksmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Again, before ordained that we should walk in them. It seems as though some if not all people's lives are laid out for them.

Ecclesiastes 7:13
Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?

If you have never called on Jesus Christ to save your soul I would encourage you to do so. What do you have to lose? If he isn't real, then it''s just words on the wind.
I have personally had some very spooky things happen to me and I believe either God himself caused it or allowed angels and/or demons to.
Some include..
Marijuana dissapearing from my backpack ( I was at home with my parents at the time, no one else was around to take it)
An electronic cigarette dissapeared OUT OF MY HAND (as I remember it, it's been a while, heh )
And notes of my sexual encounters and drug use dissapearing from my phone while other notes have stayed in tact. (Again as I remember it, it's been a while)

Also had a dream, where at the last part of the dream I was looking at the sky, suddenly the sun/moon (not sure) turned to a square, then this heavenly music started playing and a large man reached through (don't remember if the music or the man came first) and I had the sensation of being lifted off the ground. Then I woke up and looked at my phone and it was 3:16, which happens to coincide with my senior yearbook quote of John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.

I have more stories if anyone is interested

Here's the real hard truth, free will is in illusion. From our moment of origin to death we travel through time and space and form personas from the context and chemical reactions instilled in us to stimulate emotional response, in reaction to other people doing the same thing, ergo cause and effect is a universal constant stretching back to the genesis of the physical realm. It doesn't matter how many dimensions exist, even meta physics cannot defy its own laws.

>>19120518

God takes away your vices, huh? I've got similar stories, but they're about paperwork. I often lose paperwork left in my control, which sucks. What's occasionally handy is that other people also lose paperwork about me. It's like I'm divinely favored to be hard to judge by my papertrail.

I still smoke (cigarettes) to this day, so I wouldn't say he took my vices from me. From my perspective he wanted me to know how I felt about it, but I don't understand all of God's mysteries.. It makes me wonder sometimes if I'm boned as far as salvation goes, it can be a bummer.

He** not I

It's actually an interesting thing. This has to do with memetics. Not internet memes, the textbook definition of a meme is an idea that wants to copy itself in other people's minds. While genes are the blueprints to our body, memes are the blueprints to our minds, and spread whenever we communicate. These "mind viruses" can control our behavior if we don't keep them in check. Sometimes they can even override basic instincts, such as the meme that "starving yourself makes you skinny" in conjunction with the meme that "skinny is good". By understanding memes, only then can we truly control ourselves and our minds.