Free will or no free will?

[Sarcasm]

[Shindy]

I believe that we control our own lives. Throughout history, there had been many occasions where destiny is overcome by belief in humanity. Technology has allowed the mankind to advance beyond what many millions of species have not been able to do.

Ant colonies have strength in numbers. In the jungles of Africa, ants have the opportunities to be the dominant race of the place. The only thing that prevents them from becoming too strong is the parasites that burrow into them. They plant fungal roots right in their brains, and when the fungi grows and penetrates their shell, they die. What is the purpose of these fungi? It is the evolution of environment.

There are thousands of things like the parasites described above for us humans. We have become over 7 billion in number, and control the nature with our technologies. The diseases that are around today are like the fungi; they were supposed to control our numbers and prevent us from becoming too strong. Yet, they have failed due to our technologies. Medicine and medical technology has allowed us to control destiny and that black-robe-skeleton-thing with a scythe.

Therefore, I believe we control our own lives.


Yes, it can be blatantly inferred that this is one of my essays.

[Sarcasm]

How does this has anything to do with anything?

[Shindy]

Greyskin, I send you on a quest to find the thesis on a party of an essay that a user named Shindy on the great nation of Crestfallen Studios Forum. Lookat it... stare at it for 5 seconds... lets wait another 10 seconds...

Now lookat the beginning of the topic that the essay is posted... lookat it... stare at it for 5 seconds... lets wait another 10 seconds...

Well it does have a little to do with...

What about how man-made medications can dictate who we are?

anyways... my sis takes meds for ADHD... she used to be alrite, but after she took the meds... you do not want to know.

[Wellsy]

I do believe in free will, and I also personally think that belief in a deity doesn't preclude the idea of humans having free will, either. I think that God or whatever you want to call it gave us the choice to believe in Him/it and to follow or not follow any kind of belief system. You can say that our morals determine our actions, but I think that our morals rather give us ideals to strive for, and at any time, we can choose to abandon or modify them. Ultimately, we're each responsible for our own actions. There might be such a thing as destiny or fate, but if we were aware of it, I think we could change it for ourselves.

[Angel_OA]

[quote=Sarcasm]Every single thing works on mathematics[/quote]
Mathematics can't reliably be applied to something as mysterious as the human brain. Numbers can never represent an emotion or a feeling.

[Aegis]

Angel: How so? every single thing works on mathematics and the only possibility for "free" will is that if we use randomized factors, and even then its not truly our choice but a random event, we can believe or disbelieve as much as we like but the fact remains that if you look at it from the scientific point of view everything is already set, the thought argument is rather ridiculous because nothing stops thoughts to be pre-determined themselves.

That said, does the fact things are set truly matters?

I don't think it does. Yes, things are predetermined, but not in the way that primitives though of "fate" persay. The sheer complexity of the universe makes it so that, from our eyes, we may as well have free will.

I think you already knew this, but I'm just explaining it for the people who might not quite get the predetermination thing.

[quote=Sarcasm]Every single thing works on mathematics

Mathematics can't reliably be applied to something as mysterious as the human brain. Numbers can never represent an emotion or a feeling.[/quote]

You're right at the moment, but this is because, as you said, the brain is mysterious right now. Some day, we will understand more - unless nuclear armageddon or a Malthusian catastrophe wipes out industrial civilization first.

It's annoying how so many people seem to assume that we already know all we will ever know, scientifically.

[Sarcasm]

Aegis: That's what I meant indeed.

Angel: Anything can be represented by numbers, anything, numbers are by their very definition abstract ideas (not ideas as from idea, idea as the Greek philosophical term) that represent concepts.

[MusashiEX]

I'm sure that there's a complex algorithm that describes how our brain functions. We just don't know it. Yet.

[Sling]

Some AI company has scanned someone's brain somehow or is scanning progressively, I can't remember, but all I know for sure is that they've been trying to program an artificial human brain and they've been at it for a while and they're still at something like 5% complete. The details told to me were sketchy, so I'm not even sure if there is any validity in this short story whatsoever.

[Teenr0cker]

Oh yeah, I read about that too...It was scrawled on the bathroom door of the IHOP, right? Right under the phrase "MY ANUS IS BLEEDING!" carved into the door.


Truly, I jest. But I don't think we could really get it down, even with our technology... We'd be better off sticking to little tests.




I was reading Palahniuk, "Diary" in specific, today and there was some sort of Psych test some old German thought up. Using three descriptive words (Ugly, calming, soft, etc) for descriptions, pick the following:

A color.
An animal.
Any body of water (a river, bay, lake, anything)

Then imagine a white room. It's empty, has no doors, and has no windows. Describe that in 3 words as well.


Allegedly, the words describe your world. The color's description is how you would describe yourself. The animal is how you see people around you. The water describes your sex life, and the white room is supposed to be how you will die, most likely...


That last one kind of sounds cheesy, so it throws a bit of doubt. But try it out...Who knows what you'll say?

[Sarcasm]

Its not a matter of resources, but one of time.

[War]

Are we in control of our own actions? Is there such thing as random or are we the extent of what happened in the big bang or something else.

Questions as these we may never know or we already know them, but just don't realize it.

Well I think there is more to these kind of questions then we may ever know. I don't really think there will ever be a simple yes or no to answer this.

[MusashiEX]

I remain an agnostic in this matter.

[Sling]

Agnostic come from the greek words 'A' and 'Gnosis', which means without knowledge. So I guess you're right...