A mental experiment about free will

[Guest]

Franko-Wraith

Do you mind explaining what you mean by Free-will comes from Infinity ?

I mean that Free-Will comes from Infinity. This is stupid, Franko. I have explained exactly what this means. What is the point in continually asking me to 'explain' it, when it has already been explained, and I have already told you that there is no more explanation possible unless you ask me a more specific question. What exactly do you not understand, given what has already been said?

I get the feeling there is some particular question you want answered but you don't actually want to ask it.




Peskanov :

I don't understand why don't you want to accept random and acausal as the same.
I suspect that you accept free will as acausal, but not as lacking purpose. Could this be the problem?

I think the problem comes down to the "Uncaused cause". Free Will can be the cause of other things, but it cannot be caused itself, or it is not free.

Infinitine regression = infinite chain of causal events; unconceivable, but rational, I think.
Uncaused Cause to be Infinity = irrational?

Everything breaks down at Infinity. Whether you wish to label this as irrational is your choice. I don't see it as irrational to trace back the Infinite Regression to Infinity itself.

--
quote:
Free Will is not quantum randomness. Free Will and randomness are not the same thing...
--

IMO, the result of my experiment is that what you are saying here is dogmatic.
With free will you define a source of acausal events.
The QM defines a source of acausal events.
You assert that these 2 sources are not the same, and define the QM events to be just the channel, not the source. Why? If you don't take evidence from somewhere we are in dogma territory.

Some of my beliefs depend on subjective personal experience which provided personal evidence for both the existence of Free Will and the possibility that consciousness can transcend quantum randomness and defy the laws of probability, but only in certain very specific situations. Thus it is not dogma from my point of view, any more than it would be dogmatic for somebody who had actually experienced a visit from aliens to believe in aliens. But my subjective experiences cannot demonstrate this to you and are of no use in this debate. However, there are some highly contraversial results from the people at PEAR which suggest that consciousness can indeed influence quantum probablity. These results are hotly disputed by hardline materialistic skeptics, but I can't help but wonder whether this is also driven by a line of reasoning that goes :

1) Materialism must be true.
2) Therefore consciousness cannot influence quantum probabalistic outcomes.
3) Therefore the people at PEAR are either deliberately falsifying their results or are just incompetent.
4) Therefore there is no evidence that consciousness can influence quantum probablistic outcomes.

Get rid of (1), which is an assumption, and the PEAR results warrant a much closer look, which is why they are so controversial and draw so much interest. I stopped arguing with people who claim (2), (3) or (4) a long time ago and spent my efforts concentrating on (1), which IMO causes a flawed line of reasoning in its wake.

You MUST find some quality which separates both phenomena, you must find a quality in free will not present in the QM model.

The quality is Infiniteness. I apologise for not being able to give a more precise answer. The entity which posesses Free Will is Infinity itself. I think we are stuck going round in a loop.

As I said earlier, you are invited to bring other terminology, or other semantics. I don't think I am forcing meanings, still we are all biased in some direction...

By 'causal' do you mean "Is caused by" or "Is the cause of"?

Free Will must be an Uncaused Cause, or it is not Free. All other causes are themselves caused. This is this the root of the problem I think.

Talking about semantics, it think it is time to speak about what I think it's the root of the problem: the definition of "free will".
Thinking about the meaning and use of "free", it turns I find that "free" is used to talk about the lack of a restriction (or a set of restrictions). It's important to tell that these restrictions are often implicit on the context.
"Free entrance" refer to a payment restriction.
"The wagon is running free" could refer to a failure of brakes, which restricted it's movement in the rail. Still nobody says that the wagon is evading the rail, the physics model, or even causality!
In any use of "free" you will find a finite, understable context, which describes some restrictions, but still has others present.
Whe we create the term "free will", why are we trying to add ALL restrictions in the context? I can't think of any other use of "free" which is taken to that extreme. What evidence is making us think of an unlimited "will"? I can observe some restrictions in my will, and in other will as well.

Even if I have Free Will it doesn't mean I can defy the law of gravity and fly. What is 'freedom' anyway?

We should not understate the place this question takes on the hierarchy of philosophical questions. IMO Free Will is the last thing you can make sense of in philosophy, and as you do so you cross the border into religion. I believe you have to figure out many other things before you can even understand the question properly.

Geoff.

 

[Guest]

(can't edit that last one....)

Specifically to understand what is meant by 'Free Will', you have to have a meaningfull concept of what is meant by the word "I", which is the thing which does or does not have Free Will.

What do you understand the word "I" to mean?

This keeps going back to ontology. Materialism struggles to define what the mind is at all, without getting into trouble. Dualism tends to associates "I" with the mind leaving us with experiences but no experiencer. In both cases we then end up talking about "Whether or not we have Free Will" before we have a meaningfull concept of what we mean by "we".

 

[Peskanov]

Hello again, UCE;

Maybe we are near of breaking this circle...Maybe.

---
quote:
I think the problem comes down to the "Uncaused cause". Free Will can be the cause of other things, but it cannot be caused itself, or it is not free.
...
Free Will must be an Uncaused Cause, or it is not Free. All other causes are themselves caused. This is this the root of the problem I think.
---

What I am saying, probably in improper terms, is that this quality you attribute to free will, is already present in QM, a physics model.
For example, the energy of the vacuum: subatomic particles happily pop up from nowhere, radiate some energy and return to the nothingness. In one interpretation of QM this is referred as acausal, but still a bit predictable (probabilistic).
This event could be uncaused; still, it's the cause of subsequent events. An uncaused cause.

Putting the ideas in order, we have the premise (supported by you, I think): Free Will must be an Uncaused Cause, or it is not Free.
As there are more factors linked to free will than uncaused events, (like memory or recognition, which you link to our physical description of the brain) I will rephrase it like: At least one factor on free will must be composed of uncaused cause/s.
Now, my reasoning:
1- The system in which we observe free will, the brain, is not completely described in functional terms.
2- The physic model of QM include several possible uncaused events.
3- The elements which compose in free will, both caused and uncaused, could be found in physic models (from 1 and 2)
4- Hence, our definition of "free will" does not contain any element which trascends the physical model. Free will could be fully described in terms of QM.
Note that I say "could", not "can".

And that's it. This was the last point of my experiment. The definition of free will describes a model which could fit in a model of physics.
I don't know why are you so reluctant to accept my idea. After all, it's strongly disapointing for any scientist to allow uncaused events in his theorical model; you could say is a bit like putting god in the ecuation. I certainly don't like it myself, I would prefer a deterministic universe with only an original uncaused event.

---
quote:
Everything breaks down at Infinity. Whether you wish to label this as irrational is your choice. I don't see it as irrational to trace back the Infinite Regression to Infinity itself.
---

It looks like pure intuition to me... I can't force myself to map a value to an entity. I can understand saying "I have 2 chairs, or infinite chairs", but not "I have Infinity".

Now, talking about your personal experience and the PEAR experiment. These are different proofs, I was only arguing against the semantic mess which tries to bring the "will" out of the physics. New evidence about "will" could extend it's definition, and then show a shortcomming in physics.
It is obvious I can say very few against a personal experience, you have the final say over it . I can only sugest trying the scientific method to obtain more information from it, whatever it was. Some trascendental experiences can be reproduced several times. For example, astral travelling is frequent in most people. This allows to test if they are really travelling out of his body, asking the person to read numbers or words wrote in their forehead.
I am a follower of Randi work, so you can guess which is my opinion, I don't hide it.
About PEAR, I have seen several experiments in the same direction, most are published on the web.
Your acusation about materialists being biased again the PEAR experiments is a bit unfair. Everybody is biased, they just have their own bias, that's all. If there is any new knowledge to be obtained in these experiences, be sure it will be, sooner or later. Simply don't expect to find much public money put in this bussines...

---
quote:
Even if I have Free Will it doesn't mean I can defy the law of gravity and fly. What is 'freedom' anyway?
---

This is my point. "Free" and "freedom" doesn't mean nothing without a framework. Like "far" or "near".
You must offer evidence that the "free" of "free will" can't obey causality, if not we are again in dogma. It's like saying that "hot" of "hot dog" means infinite temperature. Why? Evidence of the absolute nature of free on the will, please.
Why most philosophers say that the will is free, in a sense of free never used (absolute free)?

A last thing: I don't see the need to define the full mind to talk about "free will". After all, I found interesting debating it because it's less fuzzy that "conscience", for example.I can define "decision" pretty well in a formal language, but conscience...

 

[Franko]

Elephant:
Specifically to understand what is meant by 'Free Will', you have to have a meaningfull concept of what is meant by the word "I", which is the thing which does or does not have Free Will.

What do you understand the word "I" to mean?

This keeps going back to ontology. Materialism struggles to define what the mind is at all, without getting into trouble. Dualism tends to associates "I" with the mind leaving us with experiences but no experiencer. In both cases we then end up talking about "Whether or not we have Free Will" before we have a meaningfull concept of what we mean by "we".

Forget defining “we” or “I”, what the hell is “free will” suppose to mean? Every time I hear that term all I can think of is 4-sided triangles. Honestly, I have only a vague idea what that term is even suppose to mean. Any one who believes in “free will” might as well be claiming they believe in a “Flat Earth”. Although at least Flat Earth, I can comprehend.

So tell me Elephant … are you ready to call yourself a Fatalist yet? You sound like one more and more with every post.

 

[Guest]

Hi Peskanov

What I am saying, probably in improper terms, is that this quality you attribute to free will, is already present in QM, a physics model.
For example, the energy of the vacuum: subatomic particles happily pop up from nowhere, radiate some energy and return to the nothingness. In one interpretation of QM this is referred as acausal, but still a bit predictable (probabilistic).
This event could be uncaused; still, it's the cause of subsequent events. An uncaused cause.

It may look the same from the point of view of the physicist, and I do see where you are coming from. Pairs of virtual particles appearing from the void do, I suppose, count as an uncaused cause, and allow scope for Free Will. But only if on a higher level the cause of the apparently random appearance of those particles turns out to be 'the Will of God', for want of a better term. Quantum randomness does allow scope for this, but physics would never be able to determine the difference between apparent randomness and 'Gods Will'. This potentially has some startling implications for the evolution/creation debate, and raises questions which aren't so easy to answer, and I'm not going to try.

Putting the ideas in order, we have the premise (supported by you, I think): Free Will must be an Uncaused Cause, or it is not Free.
As there are more factors linked to free will than uncaused events, (like memory or recognition, which you link to our physical description of the brain) I will rephrase it like: At least one factor on free will must be composed of uncaused cause/s.
Now, my reasoning:
1- The system in which we observe free will, the brain, is not completely described in functional terms.
2- The physic model of QM include several possible uncaused events.
3- The elements which compose in free will, both caused and uncaused, could be found in physic models (from 1 and 2)
4- Hence, our definition of "free will" does not contain any element which trascends the physical model. Free will could be fully described in terms of QM.
Note that I say "could", not "can".

And that's it. This was the last point of my experiment. The definition of free will describes a model which could fit in a model of physics.
I don't know why are you so reluctant to accept my idea. After all, it's strongly disapointing for any scientist to allow uncaused events in his theorical model; you could say is a bit like putting god in the ecuation. I certainly don't like it myself, I would prefer a deterministic universe with only an original uncaused event.

I am reluctant to accept anything at all unless I understand exactly what is being proposed.

I never actually claimed that physics couldn't account for Free Will - but I did question whether materialism could. If you are able to accept that Free Will is connected with apparent quantum randomness then I think we are agreeing with each other anyway - this was always my position. But it does indicate a link between consciousness and quantum mechanics that has been strongly resisted in certain quarters. I have never quite understood this resistance - most of the founders of QM believed it to exist.

---
quote:
Everything breaks down at Infinity. Whether you wish to label this as irrational is your choice. I don't see it as irrational to trace back the Infinite Regression to Infinity itself.
---

It looks like pure intuition to me... I can't force myself to map a value to an entity. I can understand saying "I have 2 chairs, or infinite chairs", but not "I have Infinity".

I can see why it looks like intuition. I won't force the point. I do not believe that Infinity is a number at all. +Infinity is a limit, and Infinity is Infinity itself.....

Now, talking about your personal experience and the PEAR experiment. These are different proofs, I was only arguing against the semantic mess which tries to bring the "will" out of the physics. New evidence about "will" could extend it's definition, and then show a shortcomming in physics.
It is obvious I can say very few against a personal experience, you have the final say over it . I can only sugest trying the scientific method to obtain more information from it, whatever it was. Some trascendental experiences can be reproduced several times.

I am in no hurry to repeat it. I have seen enough for me. I don't want Randis money, and I have no agenda to prove anything to anyone. I'm here because I like to talk about philosophy.

Your acusation about materialists being biased again the PEAR experiments is a bit unfair. Everybody is biased, they just have their own bias, that's all.

Forgive me. I have spent too long debating with materialists on this site. My attitude is also influenced by my memories of what it was like when I saw the world through such a belief system myself. I didn't just think materialism was true and believe paranormal phenomena were nonsense - I knew materialism was true and only total morons believed in paranormal phenomena!

This is my point. "Free" and "freedom" doesn't mean nothing without a framework. Like "far" or "near".
You must offer evidence that the "free" of "free will" can't obey causality, if not we are again in dogma. It's like saying that "hot" of "hot dog" means infinite temperature. Why? Evidence of the absolute nature of free on the will, please.
Why most philosophers say that the will is free, in a sense of free never used (absolute free)?

Maybe the philosophers talk about free will in a greater context - but perhaps there are reasons why the framework cannot be fully specified. Hegel did try to do this, but trying to understand his philosophy is the intellectual equivalent of trying to climb Mount Everest. Few go there. I certainly don't think we can bring the framework down to the level of empirical science. I am reminded of Roger Penrose who when asked "Will we find a theory of everything in your lifetime?", smiled a knowing smile and replied "Oh....I hope not....what would we do then?" How right he was. I am happy for Free Will to remain a bit of a mystery. We need a bit of mystery.

A last thing: I don't see the need to define the full mind to talk about "free will". After all, I found interesting debating it because it's less fuzzy that "conscience", for example.I can define "decision" pretty well in a formal language, but conscience...

Conscience? Yeah, that's a tough one. But I still think that any of these sorts of questions do need a meaningfull definition of "I".

It's been pleasant talking to you, Peskanov. I think we are close to the end of this discussion though.

 

[Guest]

Franko :

Forget defining “we” or “I”, what the hell is “free will” suppose to mean? Every time I hear that term all I can think of is 4-sided triangles. Honestly, I have only a vague idea what that term is even suppose to mean. Any one who believes in “free will” might as well be claiming they believe in a “Flat Earth”. Although at least Flat Earth, I can comprehend.

There is a large gap between what you say and what you really believe Franko, and I am tired of playing this game with you. I think you know perfectly well what Free Will is.

So tell me Elephant … are you ready to call yourself a Fatalist yet? You sound like one more and more with every post.

Not at all Frank :

MWI is half right.

 

[Franko]

Elephant:
There is a large gap between what you say and what you really believe Franko, and I am tired of playing this game with you. I think you know perfectly well what Free Will is.

I think you mean there is a large gap between what I believe, and what you are willing (capable) of believing. But in any event, I don’t see how what I believe prevents you from explaining what you believe?

… and no … I don’t know what “free will” is. Obviously you don’t either, or you would have simply defined it.

Atoms obey TLOP.
You are made of Atoms.
YOU DON’T HAVE ANY “FREE WILL”!

Franko:
So tell me Elephant … are you ready to call yourself a Fatalist yet? You sound like one more and more with every post.

Elephant:
Not at all Frank :

MWI is half right.

You problem is that A-Theism is still more important to you than the Truth is. So the Ego doesn’t have any “free will”, how about the “Soul” Elephant? Does the Soul have “free will”? How would I recognize “free will” if I saw it?

Hey … I know what else I wanted to ask you about. Once upon a time you stated that the Past was in flux. You said that the past was actually being determined by the present. I realize that everyone thought you were crazy for making this statement at the time, but I actually thought it was very insightful.

… So … do you still believe that the Past is Indeterminate?

 

[Guest]

Frank,

You problem is that A-Theism is still more important to you than the Truth is.

I am not an atheist Frank. And my relationship with the truth is my business, not yours.

So the Ego doesn’t have any “free will”, how about the “Soul” Elephant? Does the Soul have “free will”? How would I recognize “free will” if I saw it?

...and that is your business, Franko. You have an agenda. I don't.

Hey … I know what else I wanted to ask you about. Once upon a time you stated that the Past was in flux. You said that the past was actually being determined by the present. I realize that everyone thought you were crazy for making this statement at the time, but I actually thought it was very insightful.

… So … do you still believe that the Past is Indeterminate?

Not that it has anything to do with this thread of course....

I still believe the unobserved/unrecorded past is indeterminate.

 

[Franko]

Elephant:

I am not an atheist Frank. And my relationship with the truth is my business, not yours.

Entities who are actually concerned with the Truth don’t need to hide that fact.

...and that is your business, Franko. You have an agenda. I don't.

We all have an agenda (a purpose) Elephant. I’m just honest about mine, I serve the LG.

Apparently your agenda involves people accepting your religious proclaimations without any explanation on your part.

Not that it has anything to do with this thread of course....

I still believe the unobserved/unrecorded past is indeterminate.

Yeah, well it makes sense, because unless the past is in flux, then there would be no way you could have “free will” in ANY shape, manner, or form. Of course, since you can’t even define what you mean by your magic power … it’s a moot point.

 

[c4ts]

Hi, c4ts

--

Why do you assume the influence of the soul must be external?

--

Because the purpose of the experiment was to show that an external system couldn't help in the problem that presents the concept "free will" as an absolute.
I am not saying there is an external "free will". I am creating an scenario which has it, to show it's shortcomings.
Most people say that a true "free will" can't be subjected to any rules or restrictions, and therefore they negate the posibility of "free will" creation in our common physic models. Then, they sugest an external system.
My intention was to show that any external system presents the same problem that the physic model: It has to be subjected to restriction in some degree, or the result would end in incoherent random decisions...
My conclusion from the experiment: an external system is unneeded, and free will has restrictions. It would rest a case of debating if there is some space for randomness or not, which in my opinion wouldn't make any important diference.

I think that pretty covers it...

I reject your idea the soul must be external to the system within which it operates. I say the soul is a property of life, and it is a property by which we distinguish something alive (like a tree or human being) from something not alive (like a dead tree or photographic representation of a human being), and is not related to action. A living body is never truly at rest, for it is always undergoing some sort of self-sustaining process, such as breathing, growing, or gaining energy from ATP. Actions are indeed spurred by external forces, but they are not always responsible for the action itself. Some actions are caused externally, such as triggering a reflex by hitting someone's kneecap with a reflex hammer.

For example, something without a soul would be a corpse, statue, or even a sentient feedback loop (although the feedback loop may posess free will, it is not alive). But something without free will that is neither dead nor inanimate would be something like a zombie. A fictional zombie needs an external force acting upon it in order to do anything, or else it will remain inert. The zombie's actions that appear voluntary are caused by direct signals sent by an external controller, since without orders the zombie is merely a corpse. Therefore it makes no difference to the zombie if it's chasing peasants or getting its head blown off by Ash's shotgun, every action is completely involuntary. But actions apparently make a difference to human beings. For example, humans admire courage in battle, but they don't admire getting their heads blown off by big chinned smart alecs with shotguns. Courage is a result of volition, and it is not the result of a completely random decision, but a combination of self restraint and circumstance.

 

[Peskanov]

UCE;

---
quote:
I never actually claimed that physics couldn't account for Free Will - but I did question whether materialism could.
---

Oh, man! Then we agreed from the beginning!
This happens because my shortcomings in comunicating; anyway, it has been interesting debating for me!

---
quote:
If you are able to accept that Free Will is connected with apparent quantum randomness then I think we are agreeing with each other anyway - this was always my position. But it does indicate a link between consciousness and quantum mechanics that has been strongly resisted in certain quarters. I have never quite understood this resistance - most of the founders of QM believed it to exist.
---

Oh, I agree that until a final description of the brain is reached, it COULD be. Once the weight of QM randomness is compared with the neural net redundancy (= error control), we can solve the question. IMO, QM fluctuations can't be of importance in something so complex as a decision. But this is just my opinion, who comes from intuion gained from some years of programming small AI, and a bit of knowledge of artificial neural nets. Just my 2 cents, as everybody says.

---
quote:
I am in no hurry to repeat it. I have seen enough for me. I don't want Randis money, and I have no agenda to prove anything to anyone. I'm here because I like to talk about philosophy.
---

It was just a silly sugestion; I know there are times when we find aparent cracks in our reality which make us thing of a much more big picture... We all have unexplained experiences from time to time, specially when it comes to strong intuitions which are really common.

---
quote:
My attitude is also influenced by my memories of what it was like when I saw the world through such a belief system myself. I didn't just think materialism was true and believe paranormal phenomena were nonsense - I knew materialism was true and only total morons believed in paranormal phenomena!
---

I come from the other way, though...
I strongly believed in paranormal events; but trying to make sense of the world, I finally left them as "too few, too hard to study and understand" and build my view of the world from the most coherent data, leaving the strange for later analisis.


---
quote:
Maybe the philosophers talk about free will in a greater context - but perhaps there are reasons why the framework cannot be fully specified. Hegel did try to do this, but trying to understand his philosophy is the intellectual equivalent of trying to climb Mount Everest. Few go there. I certainly don't think we can bring the framework down to the level of empirical science. I am reminded of Roger Penrose who when asked "Will we find a theory of everything in your lifetime?", smiled a knowing smile and replied "Oh....I hope not....what would we do then ?" How right he was. I am happy for Free Will to remain a bit of a mystery. We need a bit of mystery.
---

A really good quote, the Penrose one; I will keep this one for my use.
I will take a look at Hegel too, one of my brothers is a philosophy enthusiast, he surely can provide me some background.

Well, I also think we can close this thread; I learned a lot of things here, thanks for taking your time for debating with me, and see you in others threads, UCE!

 

[Peskanov]

Hello c4ts;
You didn't get my point, it seems my writting skills are a bit poor.
First, I will tell you my personal opinion (which is different from what I consider possible or not):
I believe that human decissions are the product of the brain. I believe there is no external source. I also believe randomness is a meaningful factor in human will.
I think that we can only talk of will in systems which have parts of it which only purpose is taking decissions, like neural nets in high order living systems, and computers.
I don't think something like a tree has "soul", unless a extremely wide definition of soul is provided.

My final points from my debatting with UCE are:
-Free will is ill-defined. "Free" is provided without a proper context, and this makes it a bad use of "free".
-If somebody still insist in using the boundless definition of "free will", the QM physics model still provides an scenario which could include it. No external source is needed, although it could exist.

I am curious about your idea of a soul in a tree... And I don't really see any diference between a fictional zombie and a lizzard, in terms of motivations

 

[wraith]

Franko-Wraith



I mean that Free-Will comes from Infinity. This is stupid, Franko. I have explained exactly what this means.

How many times have I asked you about that little catch phrase of yours?

What is the point in continually asking me to 'explain' it, when it has already been explained, and I have already told you that there is no more explanation possible unless you ask me a more specific question.

youre kidding me right!

what do you mean when you say

"Free-will comes from infinity"?
It's like saying: the inner-self meets that within

in other words, it's as if youre stringing words together to sound cool or something

I get the feeling there is some particular question you want answered but you don't actually want to ask it.

LOL!
and what question might that be?

 

[Guest]

Frank,

I have explained what it means. I have explained it in terms of Hindu philosophy and I have repeated Schroedingers blunt Westernisation of the same concept.

and what question might that be?

I have no idea......

Geoff.

 

[Franko]

So Elephant if you acknowledge that you don't have any "free will", then what on Earth is preventing you from honestly calling yourself a Fatalist?

or is it an inability to be honest that is preventing you from calling yourself a Fatalist?

I'm curious, and you keep beating around the bush. If you acknowledge that you don't have any "free will", then why do you keep insisting that you have "free will"?

 

[Guest]

Franko :

So Elephant if you acknowledge that you don't have any "free will", then what on Earth is preventing you from honestly calling yourself a Fatalist?

or is it an inability to be honest that is preventing you from calling yourself a Fatalist?

The problem is yours, not mine, and has to do with your confusion about ego and soul. You identify yourself with your ego and claim to have no free will. This would be fine, if it wasn't for the fact that you also claim immortality for the same entity which has no free will (your ego). I have explained this to you before. You do not listen, Frank. I'm not going to explain this to you again. If and when you face up to the fact that your ego is mortal then you can talk to me about my ability to be honest.

I'm curious, and you keep beating around the bush. If you acknowledge that you don't have any "free will", then why do you keep insisting that you have "free will"?

I did not acknowledge that "I" do not have Free Will. I am 'beating around the bush' because there is no point in trying to explain my position to a person who has as much emotional investment in denying the reality of death as you do. Yes, Frank - you serve your logical Goddess - but you do it because you think you will be rewarded with immortality (and more) - which is why you continually harp on at atheists for not wanting to believe in post-physical punishment. It has nothing to do with post-physical punishment (which makes no sense for an entity with No Free Will anyway) - it has everything to do with Franko and his idiotic belief that he isn't actually going to die.

Unfortunately I have tried to get you to acknowledge the above before, but you just went into a long rant about how I was being 'pessimistic' because I had come to terms with the inevitability of the death of my ego. You have in effect forced this response out of me. You may have been wiser to just leave it.

 

[MRC_Hans]

So Elephant if you acknowledge that you don't have any "free will", then what on Earth is preventing you from honestly calling yourself a Fatalist?

or is it an inability to be honest that is preventing you from calling yourself a Fatalist?

I'm curious, and you keep beating around the bush. If you acknowledge that you don't have any "free will", then why do you keep insisting that you have "free will"?

Franko, I'm a bit thick: Could you explain again how you can ask somebody to "honestly call yoursef a Fatalist"? It seems obvious to me that, in your cosmology, his lack of free will prevents him from doing any such thing.

Do we have control over our actions or are they fated?

Hans