I want to believe...

[Fluffythepoo]

I believe fast food is good for me, tho bad for the environment.

 

[Gatx]

I believe in aliens, and my reasoning is pretty much on par with a lot of the reasons already stated. Also that some cryptids have to be real, especially aquatic ones. Personally I think researchers are too closed minded when it comes to looking for evidence of these things.

I believe fast food is good for me, tho bad for the environment.

The documentary Fat Head, a response to Supersize Me, shows that you can actually lose weight with a diet of only fast food as long as you avoid starchy foods like fries, mashed potatoes, etc., and sugary sodas and dessert items, and get a bit of regular exercise (nothing hardcore, just a daily walk and some aerobics or something). So while not "healthy" per se, not quite deserving of all the villainizing it gets.

 

[Phuctifyno]

Curious Phuctifyno, how much exposure have you had to the idea that there is no Free Will?

Well, I've started and quit smoking, I've been with my girlfriend for five years, and I have a daughter... [laugh,laugh,laugh,laugh]
There's also that friend of mine pursuing the Ph.D. in philosophy who carries on about it from time to time.

Because from what I can see you have used the most basic and primitive rebuttals that are very common amongst those who simply have a knee-jerk reaction to the suggestion that their free will is nothing more than an illusion.

Ugh ungh. [drools, scratches crotch] Huh? Ghghgrgrg.

Perhaps, before jumping to a position actually do some research into the discussion. Reason being do you really think you, handsome, verile, omg so hawt, browser has instantly debunked the position(s) of (in)determinism put forth by the likes of Laplace, Hawking and Einstein. <--(?)

Ah, okay. Just like the other guy(girl?); all reference, no substance. Don't stand on the shoulders of giants and expect to impress or engage anyone; put it in your own words (I'm afraid you might have to risk pseudo-intellectuals thinking you're primitive). I have no interest in arguing with famous physicist quote-mines, and I'm not going to rely on Will James, Rob Kane, Jean-Paul Sartre, or even Yoda to talk for me. I've heard all about determinism/indeterminism and am not convinced they are all-encompassing of the human experience, and you and Arakasi aren't doing much to expound or expand the material... nothing at all, really; just definitions in his(her?) case, and name-dropping in yours. I can understand that it's pretty hard to believe in free will if your own has atrophied.

Just saiyan.

Not much.

 

[Jfswift]

I don't like to say I "believe" in things.

But I do think that some people have strange "powers" if you will, or something that has not been explained by science as of yet.

The main thing are those "Deja Vu" moments that lots of people seem to have. Just the other day I had one. I was flipping channels and I came to the show Rosanne. I saw a scene and was able to recite the dialogue between John Goodman and Rosanne verbatim for a good minute or two. It was as though I just remembered what would happen since I'd seen it before, just like I can do with some dialogue in the first 3 Star Wars films since I watched them many times. But I never have once watched the show Rosanne. Its not my thing, and I've never walked through a room while someone else was watching it or anything else. I just don't watch that show, and yet I knew what the characters would say exactly. What the hell.

I've had other experiences like that too, where I'll be in a conversation with a friend and know what happens next before we get to that point in the conversation. That Deja Vu... has anyone else had these? or know what I'm talking about?

I don't know what to think, maybe our dreams are something more than just dreams? Who knows.

There's a movie called, "Dark City" that might interest you. Anyway, I experience Deja Vu every once in a while. It is a strange feeling, like you've done all this before. I've also had idle thoughts, about a phrase or a person arriving. Just something small like that, only to see it occur soon thereafter. It's happened enough times that I find it hard to believe it's just coincidence.

I wonder about ghosts too. I'm reasonably certain I've seen them on three separate occasions now, but that's another story, for another day.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

(determinism)
That's like saying the cake is a lie because only eggs, milk, flour, and sugar exist. Those are just ingredients. Of course prior events will shape your choices, as will the limitations of your choices, and mood effecting factors like the weather or chemicals inside you or other subconsious reactions to your environment, or maybe even an evil genius who's controlling you with a computer chip. These variables influence you but they don't force you. Except the evil genius; he's a forceful bastard. Additional point: free will can be overcome by any of these things, but that doesn't negate it's existence.

No no no no. Youve misunderstood and as such are easily destroying a very stupid version of determinism. I wont call it a straw man because you definitely were not intending to be malicious or intentional, i think it was just explained a bit poorly.

Imagine a box in a zero g environment with 2 bouncing balls floating around in it. If you told me their direction, speed, their bouncyness and the bouncyness of the wall as figures i could predict their motions forever basically. The balls interact and bounce around according to very basic physics. Most A level mechanics students could continue to predict the path of the balls. It really isnt difficult.

The idea behind that is, when the big bang occured, all that happened was we had a LOT of balls in a VERY big box bouncing around. Where you to be omnipotent about ALL the particles you could predict their movements and interactions forever. You could know where each molecule is and ever will be because the interaction of ALL particles is, according to some models of physics, 100% predictable. There is NO random with colliding particles. There are laws and they are followed each time, exactly.

The logic follows that, in your brain, a series of molecules and electrical charges decide what you think and do, not in an indirect sense, but DIRECTLY. Each synapse firing. Each calcium ion entering each cell to produce the electrical charge that fires off a thought on your head. This isnt "Previous actions affect what you do" this is "The particles moving in your brain are behaving according to predictable physics, those particles are what make up your consciousness". Said particles behave according to the same principle as my original box and ball scenario. The electricity is similarly predictable. As such where i to know the EXACT starting conditions of your brain and had enough time to calculate the movement of every particle i could know where each one will move and what will happen. Unless you have a way of changing the particles motion in any direction you want and thus break the laws of popular models of physics free will is impossible.

There are many good arguments against this though. Uncertainty theory DOES imply the interaction of particles can be changed based on how they observed and how people interact with them just by watching. Its enough in my mind to throw doubt on the concept. However its important to know that you do not disporve determinism by saying:

"I chose to click this thread" because the real meat of the theory is in the laws of physics. Unless you can demonstrate that you can, at any time, choose to move a particle in a way no physics could predict ever free well cannot exist by the use of demonstration. Instead you need to undermine the idea that all interactions between particles can only go a single way.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

That we're living in a computer simulation of a universe. Not like "Everyone's a program, and I'm the only real sentient/sapient being" solipsism a la Breakfast of Champions, but like "We're all programs." I also don't think it'd be like the Matrix where we're essentially brains in jars, but we're actually programs with no corporeal form in the universe in which our simulation exists.

Mathematically speaking, if it is physically possible to create an AI program capable of intelligent thought, then the chances of you being right is almost 100%.

This is because the hypothetical program we are a part of could have been created at any point in time, but there is only one point in time that is "real." So the odds against this being reality are near-infinity to one.

Furthermore, us being programs means we could have been created 10 seconds ago, and our memories are simply loaded in. This would explain why we never notice any glitches (as a program as complex as our universe would have millions): they probably happen all the time, but our memory is periodically altered and defragmented. Maybe that's what dreaming is...

Incidentally, if you've never seen Dark City (1998) I'd highly recommend it.
It's a great movie which explores a similar premise.

 

[nuba km]

I believe that life forms exist on other planneds but most(99.99999...%) who believe they have spotted visitors are talking bull, whether they know it or not.

I kinda believe in ghosts, I just think that instead of the spirits of the undead that they are a combination of your subconscious amazing ability to notice the smallest of details, a level of paranoia that we all share, our urge to be right and our imagination.

 

[Phuctifyno]

No no no no. Youve misunderstood and as such are easily destroying a very stupid version of determinism. I wont call it a straw man because you definitely were not intending to be malicious or intentional, i think it was just explained a bit poorly.

Fair enough, though for my fragile ego's sake, I'll argue that it wasn't misunderstood as much as it was just a stupid version of determinism.

Imagine a box in a zero g environment with 2 bouncing balls floating around in it. If you told me their direction, speed, their bouncyness and the bouncyness of the wall as figures i could predict their motions forever basically. The balls interact and bounce around according to very basic physics. Most A level mechanics students could continue to predict the path of the balls. It really isnt difficult.

The idea behind that is, when the big bang occured, all that happened was we had a LOT of balls in a VERY big box bouncing around. Where you to be omnipotent about ALL the particles you could predict their movements and interactions forever. You could know where each molecule is and ever will be because the interaction of ALL particles is, according to some models of physics, 100% predictable. There is NO random with colliding particles. There are laws and they are followed each time, exactly.

This is much better. I'm familiar with it and very much agree with it; as a teen, I liked to call it My Hungry Hippo Theory. I was disappointed to later find out it was already a common theory and not named nearly as cleverly.

The logic follows that, in your brain, a series of molecules and electrical charges decide what you think and do, not in an indirect sense, but DIRECTLY. Each synapse firing. Each calcium ion entering each cell to produce the electrical charge that fires off a thought on your head. This isnt "Previous actions affect what you do" this is "The particles moving in your brain are behaving according to predictable physics, those particles are what make up your consciousness". Said particles behave according to the same principle as my original box and ball scenario. The electricity is similarly predictable. As such where i to know the EXACT starting conditions of your brain and had enough time to calculate the movement of every particle i could know where each one will move and what will happen. Unless you have a way of changing the particles motion in any direction you want and thus break the laws of popular models of physics free will is impossible.

There are many good arguments against this though. Uncertainty theory DOES imply the interaction of particles can be changed based on how they observed and how people interact with them just by watching. Its enough in my mind to throw doubt on the concept. However its important to know that you do not disporve determinism by saying:

"I chose to click this thread" because the real meat of the theory is in the laws of physics. Unless you can demonstrate that you can, at any time, choose to move a particle in a way no physics could predict ever free well cannot exist by the use of demonstration. Instead you need to undermine the idea that all interactions between particles can only go a single way.

That is interesting. I'm tempted to argue with a fanciful theory about the multiverse; that free will is something that may exist within certain particles themselves (which also manifests as choice within the human experience) and is essential in the fabric of the universe to produce entropy, and that just as the physical universe expands outward, so does the multiverse by multiplying universes with every "choice" made on a subatomic level. There are so many unanswered questions in quantum physics, and seemingly even more in neuroscience as well. I'm not "filling the void with God" so much as "No thanks; here are some fun dumb ideas". But that's all silliness and not really what I'm getting at.

The scientific perspective you deliver is sound, though remaining as theory and not proven fact (as pretty much all physics); I admittedly don't have the resources to debunk that stuff, but that was never really my intention. Ultimately what I think is that the factors that determine a choice a person makes (illusion or not) are so humanly incalculable that they cease to matter. If I bring back the cake, which I know you love, you can say that it doesn't really exist because it's only a composition of the ingredients and that will still be true; but, as humans possessing the ability to place names on objects and concepts to make amends with our limited perceptions, we call it a cake because that is how we experience it. Even if every single one of our strings are being pulled by forces beyond our understanding, we still experience time in a forward flowing manner and choices in a self-determinist and responsible manner; whether or not is an illusion doesn't enter into our experience. We are not above it even if we know there is an above to be.

Now this is embarassing, since I told the other guy(girl?) that I wasn't interested in quote-mining or letting William James (BillJim!) talk for me, but fuck it, I'm gonna. "My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will." It's a pretty cheesy I think therefore I am type of cliche, but it leads into a point I want to make with a quadrant table. Not having an actual table, please apply imagination.

Spoiler: imaginary table

So imagine a scenario in which there are two classes of people, the powerful and the powerless, and free will does exist in this universe.

Q1: The powerful leave the powerless alone, free will is belived in. Result: Everyone's free and they know it. Life is good.

Q2: The powerful opress the powerless, free will is believed in. Result: Being aware of their suffering and ability to fight back, the powerless revolt. Maybe they succeed, maybe not. At the very least, they try.

Q3: The powerful leave the powerless alone, free will is not believed in. Result: Nothing at all. Free will lingers, unused. Life is good.

Q4: The powerful opress the powerless, free will is not believed in. Result: Even though suffering, the powerless accept their fate. Slave race! Way to go, humanity.

Of course, in a universe where free will does not exist, it's all inconsequential (objectively speaking) and may pan out the same anyway, but the suffering is still experienced first hand by the powerless. With a debate that continues for millenia, it seems that the chances of it either being true or not are 50/50, so if given the option to hedge my bets with one side or another, I'm gonna throw my eggs into the "choice" basket every time (if that choice was already made for me, so be it, I will still experience it as a choice).

I can't say that determinism automatically leads to nihilism or fatalism (which I kicked around in for a few years), but it seems to most of the time; and whether predetermined or not, it can have disasstrous results on our plain of existence, on an historic or personal level. When you have a kid, there's just no time for that shit. You've gotta take responsibility, even if you're making it up as you go (or not, or whatever, the rabbit hole has no bottom).

Now clearly, my argument is primarily an emotional one and not a scientific one, and very simplified. But I have to reiterate that that is the entire point of this thread: to state a belief you hold regardless of it flying in the face of logic. I am fully aware of how ridiculous it is to even hold a belief, and don't have many. I would never identify as an anti-intellectual either, but with no real answers on the matter that satisfy me, free will is just something I'd rather gamble for than against (considering that there no consequences for being wrong, but potentially many if it were the other way around).

 

[IndomitableSam]

I believe in aliens, ghosts, Nessie, magic, Yetis, dragons... all of it. In some cases it's much more fun to believe it's true (ie dragons and such), others you kind of can't deny (aliens), and otherwise, things like ghosts, past lives and magic and similar you've seen.

I see lots of ghosts. I don't know if it's a twin thing, but things have always gotten creepy and odd easily. To the point that I refuse to live in older houses and even be in places filled with history at night. Not that they're all bad - most of them are harmless and many are family, even, but I know they're there and I don't want them around, even if it is my old childhood pet. Makes me very uncomfortable.

Doesn't help that I work in a Heritage building and am a librarian in a building full of books from the 1600's onwards. And our building keeps lights off to help preserve the materials. There are also some books I just refuse to touch and certain parts of some shelves I don't even like going near. It's not really a bother as I'm never here at night, but you never get the sense you're alone up in the stacks and often see shifting shadows, even though you're the only one up there. I don't think there's anyone named in this building, but at the Legislature in the library where I sometimes work there's a woman who used to be a librarian a long time ago who wanders the stacks and sits at the desks to do some work. Apparently scares the shit out of the new security guards, but the old ones are fine with her. I also think there's a whistler who roams the halls there. And probably more. I haven't met the woman yet, though I've been there alone in the dark before. I don't get a bad feeling at all, anyway.

Apparently my mother made her and my dad move out of a house after a month or so of living in it because it was haunted. She's never fully explained to me what happened, but I think it was just a bunch of little things.

My twin sister and I also have the exact same memories of events and places and have spoken to family about them but they swear up and down the have no idea what we're talking about.

Think I'll stop now so I don't start sounding really out there.

 

[ToxicOranges]

This will sound silly, but I want to believe in God - or a god, it doesn't matter, because as silly as it sounds, facing being alone eternally and after death (If anything even happens) sounds awful. The idea of a being who will accept me, warts and all, is pretty appealing.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

My beliefs are never based on faith or a desire to belive something. Everything I beleive, I believe because I feel it is the best, most logical, most well supported explanation, that can be shown to have a high likelyhood of being true by means of science and/or logic and reason. The weirdest belief I hold is, therefore, either that alien life exists somewhere (pretty common, even amoung astronomers) or that cannibalism is perfectly morally acceptable, and even a desirable practice. Not murder, of course, just post-mortem cannibalism in certain situations. Namely, when food is scarce and not eating a person's corpse would endanger your survival, or as a kind of pragmatic funeral rite with the deceased consent prior to death.

 

[PissOffRoth]

I can't believe anything if it hasn't been repeated in a controlled environment or there's no data to support it. This has pretty much fucked up my life and makes music and poetry incredibly difficult. I can't apply abstract concepts like "fate","destiny", or "the power of love" without feeling either ridiculous or disingenuous. It was a lot different in my adolescence, and I envy those who still look at life and the world with a sense of wonder and eagerness to approach the unknown without looking for irrefutable answers.

Art doesn't have to be about fate or destiny or love or anything like that. Art should imitate your life. Just write (or play) what ever it is that means something to you.
The feeling at the moment of great discovery. Or you can write about what you just described in your post; the way you struggle with your inability to accept uncertainty.

Also, I recommend you think a little deeper about how much you really can prove. Any philosophy professor will tell you that there is literally nothing that we can prove. The only way forward is to decide what things you can take as being self-evident, and then build your beliefs on that foundation. "I think, therefore I am."

I hope some of this helps you.

 

[PissOffRoth]

I believe that I can do absolutely anything at all, be it winning a Nobel prize, killing a tiger on my way to school, shooting laser beams from my hands or just flying. I think that I (might) have complete control over the universe and if a try really hard I can bend it to my will as to accomplish anything from the mundane to the magical.

The human brain lacks the capacity to comprehend everything in the entire universe, for there are atoms and dark spaces and energy beyond measure, and countless ways in which these things interact to form everything, including the brain you are trying to use to comprehend everything in the universe. I don't believe that anything this universe has birthed is capable of comprehending this universe.

That being said, the brain is still an enigma to human science and so you may well be capable of doing things with the power of your mind that you aren't aware of.

 

[PissOffRoth]

I want to believe that the blatant sexism that still runs rampant in hiring women to work in the automotive business as mechanics will go away and I'll actually finally get a job doing what I love. Unfortunately as I'm still in the same situation I've been in for almost 10 years now......it's getting harder and harder to believe it.

Also that I will be able to run around at least shirtless like half the population gets to without getting arrested and having to register as a sex offender for it.

The day is coming. Feminism is making a comeback, women's rights have never been a more talked-about issue than they are right now, and people are standing up against the laws that suppress women all over the world. Take heart, and join the fight. Speak up. Your voice counts, every voice counts. Only when every woman and man stand together and say "Enough, this is not right" will the fight be over. It is your life, so it is your choice to take it from governments that have removed your freedoms. You aren't alone.

 

[Phuctifyno]

Anyone with even the most basic idea of (in)determinism can provide a rebuttal against the "I can get nekkid" defence.

Yet you don't.

An expected response.

Sure.lol

If I was debating with you I would, but I'm not. I have no desire nor intention to 'win' an internet debate,

Sure.lol - Welcome back, btw.

I was merely pointing out that this is quite an old and complex discussion that perhaps you should do some research into before putting your eggs all in the one basket.I just wanted you to educate yourself before you come to your conclusion, whatever it may be.

Oh, of course. How very kind, thoughtful, and characteristically generous of you.

If you cannot find any logical reasoning behind your position and your primary reason for holding said position is "emotional satisfaction" than you have no place in the discussion.

Didn't read the OP, didya?

If I was to guess I'd say you're probably a religious man.

Now there's an expected response. You'd guess wrong - colour me shocked.

You got your attention fix, now go play outside.

 

[Arakasi]

Free will on the other hand, does not exist.

I'd like to see some evidence to back up that claim.

Not that I need any evidence, considering that the burden of proof lies on the one trying to show the thing exists, but I've already provided plenty of proof in this thread if you wish to go back and read through my posts.

Especially given the fact that we are having the discussion of what free will is right now.

Free will is the idea that we are ultimately responsible through for our actions through some capability we have, called 'free will'. At least, that's how I describe it, you'll see many other ways of defining it also.

To believe that not only was I pre-determined to make every choice I ever did, but I was pre-determined to be skeptical of free-will on the grounds that I am capable of being skeptical of it, it strains credibility.

It's a clever illusion that improves psychological self-efficacy, so of course it was probably evolutionarily selected for.
Since I can't be really bothered to type our my arguments over and over again, I'm just going to show you what some of my favorite philosophers have said about it:

Spoiler: Lots of reading

Though we feel that we can choose what we do, our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets. Recent experiments in neuroscience support the view that it is our physical brain, following the known laws of science, that determines our actions, and not some agency that exists outside those laws. For example, a study of patients undergoing awake brain surgery found that by electrically stimulating the appropriate regions of the brain, one could create in the patient the desire to move the hand, arm, or foot, or to move the lips and talk. It is hard to imagine how free will can operate if our behavior is determined by physical law, so it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion.?

?You can do what you decide to do ? but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.? ?Whatever their conscious motives, these men cannot know why they are as they are. As sickening as I find their behavior, I have to admit that if I were to trade places with one of these men, atom for atom, I would be him: There is no extra part of me that could decide to see the world differently or to resist the impulse to victimize other people. Even if you believe that every human being harbors an immortal soul, the problem of responsibility remains: I cannot take credit for the fact that I do not have the soul of psychopath. If I had truly been in Komisarjevsky's shoes on July 23,2007 - that is, if I had his genes and life experience and identical brain (or soul) in an identical state - I would have acted exactly as he did. There is simply no intellectually respectable position from which to deny this.? ?Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn't choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime - by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?? "Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them. If a man's choice to shoot the president is determined by a certain pattern of neural activity, which is in turn the product of prior causes-perhaps an unfortunate coincidence of bad genes, an unhappy childhood, lost sleep, and a cosmic-ray bombardment-what can it possibly mean to say that his will is "free"? No one has ever described a way in which mental and physical processes could arise that would attest to the existence of such freedom."

That's rather a large chunk of his book there, but he also provides neurobiological evidence to back up his point.

"Dl. I shall state the view that there is "unbroken causal continuity" in the universe as follows. It is in principle possible to make a sufficiently precise determination of the state of a sufficiently wide region of the universe at time to, and sufficient laws of nature are in principle ascertainable to enable a superhuman calculator to be able to predict any event occurring within that region at an already given time t'.

D2. I shall define the view that "pure chance" reigns to some extent within the universe as follows. There are some events that even a superhuman calculator could not predict, however precise his knowledge of however wide a region of the universe at some previous time.
For the believer in free will holds that no theory of a deterministic sort or of a pure chance sort will apply to everything in the universe: he must therefore envisage a theory of a type which is neither deterministic nor indeterministic in the senses of these words which I have specified by the two definitions DI and D2; and I shall argue that no such theory is possible."

 

[Blow_Pop]

I want to believe that the blatant sexism that still runs rampant in hiring women to work in the automotive business as mechanics will go away and I'll actually finally get a job doing what I love. Unfortunately as I'm still in the same situation I've been in for almost 10 years now......it's getting harder and harder to believe it.

Also that I will be able to run around at least shirtless like half the population gets to without getting arrested and having to register as a sex offender for it.

The day is coming. Feminism is making a comeback, women's rights have never been a more talked-about issue than they are right now, and people are standing up against the laws that suppress women all over the world. Take heart, and join the fight. Speak up. Your voice counts, every voice counts. Only when every woman and man stand together and say "Enough, this is not right" will the fight be over. It is your life, so it is your choice to take it from governments that have removed your freedoms. You aren't alone.

If the women out here would be more vocal and the men (most of them not all) would stop being such assholes and insisting that women can't do this or that we *MIGHT* be a little farther along. Unfortunately there is only so much I can actually do along with the small minority of other people out here.

 

[Ljs1121]

I like to believe in the Loch Ness Monster.

Realistically, there's probably nothing there, but I think it's fun to wonder about nonetheless.

 

[ToxicOranges]

The idea of a being who will accept me, warts and all, is pretty appealing.

If by "accepts you warts and all" you mean loves you on the condition that you obediently submit to his arbitrary demands all the while threatening you with the prospect of him torturing you for all eternity if you dare sway.

Sounds like a fucking nightmare to me.

Nooooo, by "warts and all" I mean he'll accept the fact that I'm lazy, don't give to charity, don't believe in him, etc.
Although to be honest, the prospect of giving myself to a higher being in the chance of obtaining true power sounds good.

 

[SirPlindington]

I believe that the universe exists, and that we can view the whole of it from an objective standpoint and it will make sense, and that's enough for me. More than some people believe. I don't believe in anything supernatural, though.

Oh yeah, and that humans have free will and basically everyone is really a decent person on the inside, and optimism and all that jazz. Also jazz. Jazz exists.