Susan's Place Transgender Resources

do you think mankind has a freewill? is everything predefined or do we have the chance to control our life and this world?

what if we have a freewill? what makes it a freewill? isn't everything based on physics and chemical reactions? aren't we controlled by electric impulses?

what if we don't have a freewill? is it worth to do something, why not just sit back and wait because everything comes as it has to come? but isn't this sitting back predefined either?

feeling philosophical tonight too.  :P

Personally, I like to think that we do have freedom of choise, but on the other hand there are things I believe to be predefined as well. I suppose the best way of saying what my standpoint of the whole freewill question is, is that the universe presents us with said number of predefined lives (x) and the choises we make in our lives by employing free will (y) determine which eventual outcomes of our lives (z) are more likely than others. I suppose you could link it to the matematical computation of odds. xCy = z. I guess then that life is all a question of math really. All about how you pick the numbers to get the "right" answer. This is just my opinion on the question, (it is a philosophical question and we'll only ever know the answer after we die, if then) so this is as close to an answer as I can give. Hope it is useful to you.

Nothing is predefined.... especially when it comes to something as complicated as a person.  I do know that if you just give up and sit down for the rest of your life, you will get fat!  See?  You can have some logical predictions but that can help us.  We know that if we do this, that will happen.  We always have choices.  Sometimes they are crappy choices but we will always have choices.

Cindi

So you want to be philosophical, huh? >:D  Then answer this: If you have set of choices presented before you and you decide on a particular choice, is that really free will if all choices would have led to the same outcome?  >:D >:D >:D  Furthermore, don't ALL choices ultimately lead to death?

....and I'd imagine that you want me to be terribly honest, correct?  Okay, then, I will give you my opinion.

If you ask this question to someone who is a Christian, they will almost always give you the same answer "yes, we do because God gave us free will".
I do believe, however, that we are conditioned, and our actions are not free will but self-control.  I think that we do make our own choices, but they are governed by our beliefs and what we learn as we travel through life.

tink :icon_chick:

You're all WRONG!!!!!!!  :icon_chainsaw: :icon_punch: :icon_poke: :icon_bat:

I'm just kidding. I'm pretending to start a fight over a simple and reasonable question.
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   I think we have free Will, but within the boundaries that Katia mentioned like physics and stuff.  Everything has boundaries and we have the free will to try and cross those boundaries or to try and make the most of what we have within the boundaries.
   I have no judgment over those who break boundaries or those who stay within them.  Just my thoughts.

Do we have a free will?  Of course we do...it's predestined!

The question of free will is a red herring.  While we are alive, we will never know if we have free will or not.  The real question is, do we believe we have free will?  For most, the answer is yes...that our future is dependent on the choices we make.

The very thought of our lives being predestined, or pre-determined, is actually pretty depressing.

Reminds me of a discussion on the same topic at church when I was young...the answer that was given was that yes, we do have free will, but God already knows how it will turn out.  Sounded good at the time (kinda like Univeral Health Care) but after reflection, there wasn't much to hang your faith on.

.....Laurie

I don't think we have complete free will, nor are our lives predetermined.  I believe we are given a set of choices based on interactions and circumstances in our lives.  We can react on those circumstances or be proactive and work to alter the circumstances, but it's closer to being free will.  It's just that the boundaries in which we have a set of choices are constantly changing and many of the factors that define those changing boundaries are out of our control, thus we don't have complete freewill.  However, within those boundaries,n we do have free will.  It's just a matter of whether those choices lead to the same consequences or whether they really do affect factors that determine future boundaries.

A good example is a TS that has strong dysphoria and has many choices to try to get out, but then transitions in the end.  The outcomes was the same regardless of the choices they made in regards to arriving at that particular outcome.

My thought has always been:

Destiny is an option.

I think we do have some kind of destiny, but we also have the freedom to choose that destiny. It's a strange dynamic, but I think there's some truth to it.

I donno.

I do have a freewheel on my bike.

tmw

I had three wheels on my trike

Quote from: Katia on June 04, 2007, 03:28:23 AM
do you think mankind has a freewill?

Not if the advertising industry has anything to say about it.

Come to think of it, I did have free Will once upon a tasty time.



                                                              But then I got into a committed relationship    :'(



And now I simply yearn to be committed  ::)

Not institutionalised?

Quote from: Pica Pica on June 06, 2007, 10:29:37 AM
Not institutionalised?

    Right. I meant institutionalized. Committed into an institution and given a ball of yarn to play with and fingerpaints too.

always half liked the idea of that, though one of my biggest wishes is to be treated like a toddler - i guess i just can;t be arsed to do nowt for myself.

well, if you're rating institutionalization at all, it's overrated.

Trust me on this one.

tmw

Quote from: The Middle Way on June 06, 2007, 07:30:02 PM
well, if you're rating institutionalization at all, it's overrated.

Trust me on this one.

tmw

Not really, just playing pretend. Most things are nicer in pretend.

In my experience, I can only choose to struggle against my destiny - or to acquiesce to it.

I've chosen the latter ;)

~Kate~

Quote from: Kate on June 07, 2007, 03:10:37 PM
In my experience, I can only choose to struggle against my destiny - or to acquiesce to it.

I've chosen the latter ;)

~Kate~

Temet Nosce. ;)  And that illustrates my point.  You use freewill to choose your destiny.  It's all a matter of knowing who you are.  Once you know that and stop fighting, you have more freedom with your destiny.

Quote from: Melissa on June 07, 2007, 03:16:52 PM
Temet Nosce. ;)  And that illustrates my point.  You use freewill to choose your destiny.  It's all a matter of knowing who you are.  Once you know that and stop fighting, you have more freedom with your destiny.

Yes... well, sort of. In my goofy personal religion, I HAVE to transition. That's my destiny. I really can't escape it no matter how hard I try. It's not just knowing who I am, but also becoming who I am, living it as well as knowing it.

I started my blog here mentioning a "Circle of Destiny," which is what I SEE coming. Somewhere about a year from now, this phase for me ends. I SEE that coming. But I can't SEE beyond that, because after that, I'm finally FREE. No more destinies. The cast comes off, the braces are removed, and the world and I are going to have one helluva party.

And you're all invited ;)

~Kate~

Quote from: Kate on June 07, 2007, 03:28:10 PM

Quote from: Melissa on June 07, 2007, 03:16:52 PM
Temet Nosce. ;)  And that illustrates my point.  You use freewill to choose your destiny.  It's all a matter of knowing who you are.  Once you know that and stop fighting, you have more freedom with your destiny.

Yes... well, sort of. In my goofy personal religion, I HAVE to transition. That's my destiny. I really can't escape it no matter how hard I try. It's not just knowing who I am, but also becoming who I am, living it as well as knowing it.

Transition is NOT your destiny, being a woman is.  Transition only serves as a means of getting there.  You are a woman and when you tried fighting that, you gave up your freewill. :)

Quote from: Tink on June 04, 2007, 09:51:02 PM
If you ask this question to someone who is a Christian, they will almost always give you the same answer "yes, we do because God gave us free will".
I do believe, however, that we are conditioned, and our actions are not free will but self-control.  I think that we do make our own choices, but they are governed by our beliefs and what we learn as we travel through life.

tink :icon_chick:

Conditioned by what? (I agree, conditioned, totally) Belief?

The Short Answer:  I don't, not really.  Some do.

The Long Answer:
1. Assume You want to try and be a good person.
2. Secondly, Assume that You have a definition for "Good" and "Bad"
3. Thirdly, Assume that it is like temperature. Given two Instants in Time, the temperature can be close, but they are never equal. 21.000007 and 21.000000004, etc..

Well, this doesn't hold for things like what am I going to eat today.  Which *is* a decision.

Alright.  New approach.

Call.
g = genetics
e = the set of your experiences
m = state of mind

p = problem / delima / situation requiring a decision.
d = decision

There is a function f(g, e, m, p) = d
for all p.

But simply because there is a translation function doesn't necessarily mean we don't have free will.  We can chose our state of mind.  We can choose to be happy or sad, therefore we can influence d, and if we can influence d, then we choose (indirectly) d by virtue of the fact that we can choose m.

I guess we have free will.
*shrug*

My initial synopsis was wrong.  We have free will.

Jessica
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In thinking about this further.
Our state of mind could be determined by exactly those above.
In other words:
m = t(g, e, f(g, e, m)prior, p )

So we have a recursively defined function which is entirely dependent upon
g, e, and prior decisions and outcomes.

In which case we would not have free will as the decision we make today is simply some translation function between our experiences, genetics, and the results of all our prior problems and resulotions which make up our state of mind at the time.

In other words m is a highly complex function which is the result of our genetics, experience, problems, and decisions.

Or, e, our experience, which is much more likely is made up of all decisions and problems.

Okay.

that makes more sense.

Our experience is defined as the set of problems and decisions that have been made in the past.
That's e.
Then we have g, our genetics. They play a part in the decisions we make.

Then we have m. Obviously m is somehow related to e. But, how?
If there is some element of m that is 'controlled' by us, we have free will. Otherwise, we are nothing more than translation functions based on g and e.  If m can be expressed by g and e alone, we don't have free will.
Otherwise we do.

In other words, let m, our state of mind, equal all of our related experiences + our genetics or sigma(e) + g
then we have the following:

f(g, e, m, p) = d

f(g, e, Sigma(e) + g, p) = d

Since everything is expressed in terms of genetics and experience, then we do not have free will, our decision is based on nothing more than the translation function of our genetics and experience and the problem.  However, I do not know if m can be mererly a function of the other parts.

well, the problem, p, also influences our state of mind so.
m can be expressed as some function involving p, g, and e.  If there is nothing more to m....
e can be expressed, by it's definition (experience), as some function involving all p and d we have made before.

I don't know if we do or not.  It really all depends on m.

This is a pretty interesting question, I think I'll work on it a bit more.

The *sensation* of freewill is really an illusion. The mind "thinks" thoughts just as it feels cold and pain and love, only it also reflects on itself, so we get this quirky sensation of thinking about what we think about, lol.

Life is really just the mind trying to figure out and rationalize why it did what it just did from second to second, lol...

Think about it, lol: by the time you "feel" a thought, it's a done deal. It already happened. It's gone, and you're left looking at this ghost image of it's passing. You didn't "think" it, as a verb, it just happened... and you're like a cop at the scene of an accident trying to figure out what the heck happened, who to blame, etc. ;)

~Kate~

[completely non-confrontationally]

The answer is necessarily contingent seemingly, upon............whether one ascribes to the notion that the sum of a 'man' is nothing more than a product of the material elements which constitute 'his' physical body and as such, is nothing more than a mere animal, solely controlled and regulated by neurochemical and physical processes, or whether 'man' is a 'composite' being, comprised of the mind [independent of the flesh] and a distinct spiritual entity.

The latter is the case, in reality.

Rhonda,

We have two possibilities based upon your post

1. ascribes to the notion that the sum of a 'man' is nothing more than a product of the material elements which constitute 'his' physical body and as such, is nothing more than a mere animal, solely controlled and regulated by neurochemical and physical processes.

2. 'man' is a 'composite' being, comprised of the mind [independent of the flesh] and a distinct spiritual entity.

To state, "The latter is the case, in reality" is a statement of your beliefs, but does not mean it is a fact.

It could be entirely possible that 1 is the case, but those 'neurochemical and physical processes' are quantum based, therefore, so far beyond our ability to comprehend using current technology and processes that it appears that #2 is the case.

Quote from: Jessica on June 18, 2007, 10:25:05 AM
Rhonda,

We have two possibilities based upon your post

1. ascribes to the notion that the sum of a 'man' is nothing more than a product of the material elements which constitute 'his' physical body and as such, is nothing more than a mere animal, solely controlled and regulated by neurochemical and physical processes.

2. 'man' is a 'composite' being, comprised of the mind [independent of the flesh] and a distinct spiritual entity.

To state, "The latter is the case, in reality" is a statement of your beliefs, but does not mean it is a fact.

It could be entirely possible that 1 is the case, but those 'neurochemical and physical processes' are quantum based, therefore, so far beyond our ability to comprehend using current technology and processes that it appears that #2 is the case.

WHAT "I" THINK:

It's not either/or, it's neither/nor. Why would you want to reduce the complex thing/not-thing to a binary supposition like this?  :) IE: Who or what programmed 'your' not-free will?

It's conditioned by the nature of the whole ballgame, All Of The Above. Which 'is' an illusion.

And if we can't be free, at least we can be cheap.

None Of The Above/All Of The Above
SUM of the above

Quote from: Kate on June 18, 2007, 09:19:57 AM
The *sensation* of freewill is really an illusion.

I 'sense' another student of Zen Buddhism here.

QuoteWhy have you attempted to reduce the complex thought

*I* did not, I was quoting someone else to clarify a point

I truely have no desire to argue semantics, verbal fencing is not my style.
With that, I'll say the following and bow out of the topic.

Rhonda Wrote

Quote
[completely non-confrontationally]

The answer is necessarily contingent seemingly, upon............whether one ascribes to the notion that the sum of a 'man' is nothing more than a product of the material elements which constitute 'his' physical body and as such, is nothing more than a mere animal, solely controlled and regulated by neurochemical and physical processes, or whether 'man' is a 'composite' being, comprised of the mind [independent of the flesh] and a distinct spiritual entity.

The latter is the case, in reality.

Her statement makes the arguement that there are two options. (Those listed in bold)
Furthermore, She makes the case that the second is reality. (Listed in Italics)
I took her 'or' as an exclusive or, meaning they can not be both true since they are mutually exclusive.

I was offering an alternative viewpoint based on her post. Hence, the use of the words, "based upon your post"