Janszoon

If you think I was trying to say "humans can do what rivers do" then you missed my point. I'll try to state it more literally for you: The decisions we make are the result of our brains interacting with the world around us. Our brains, in any given moment, are wired a certain way as a result of genetics, experience, etc., and it may well be that all our decisions are kind of inevitable because of that. What appears to be free will to us might simply be an illusion created by how incredibly complex the interaction is.

Incidentally, I never said or implied that "we don't have control over ourselves, but no one else does either", I simply asked you why you were making the assumptions that you were making.

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TheBig3

Well this sounds like the same problem we're having in the eSports thread. What is free will?

I won't argue that people have a predilection toward acting one way or another. I'd agree. But the idea that we can't overthrow that just won't jive with my view of the world. I'm guessing I'm not understanding you here, but I assume you'd agree with that.

As an example. I like to sleep a lot more than I like to work. Still, I get up at 6 every day to go to work and forego an extra 3 hours of sleep. I'm designed to want to sleep, but by virture of my wanting to eat and having a Super Ego, I get up and I go to work.

Are we talking about different things?

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midnight rain

You're mind recognizes the need to maintain a job in our society, that the negatives of sleeping in outweigh the postives. In your case, the Super Ego appears to outrank the need of sleep.

Just because we don't have free will, doesn't mean our thinking is primitive. We have a high enough intelligence to recognize cause and effect, and consequences of actions.

TheBig3

So where are you saying most people believe the perception of freewill exists when (as you say) it does not?

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Neapolitan

How can humans have intelligence yet no free will?

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midnight rain

You aren't choosing to go to work over sleeping in, it's your natural response to the given conditions. The decision that you would sleep in, in this example, is only an illusion.

midnight rain

Plants have intelligence, do you think they choose to bloom?

Humans have intelligence, do you think we choose to work?

It's a similar line of thinking.

Dr_Rez

Right, sleeping in = no food and shelter.

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TheBig3

Why do I feel like this is the long sell toward the new Anarchists party?

Alright so what you're saying is, given the environmental concerns, people don't really have a choice.

If that's the case, you should tell us when it ends. If you're suggesting we don't have the choice as to whether or not we go to work, what about hanging out with friends?

Do we not have a choice there? Do we have free will at certain points but not others. Where do the illusions end? If they never end, why would I blow off certain people one day but not another? If the illusions do end, what accounts for our ability to lose free will?

Plants have intelligence? What the hell does that mean?

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midnight rain

Humans are a social species who seek one another out, build cities together, etc. It's in our nature to stay close with those with common ground.

It's all situational. Feeling ill, tired of being around them, or any number of reasons.



Plant intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia