do we have a freewill?

[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.

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~

[Melissa]

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.

[The Middle Way]

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

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

[Jessica]

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
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

[Kate]

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~

[rhonda13000]

[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.

[Jessica]

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.

[The Middle Way]

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

The *sensation* of freewill is really an illusion.

I 'sense' another student of Zen Buddhism here.

[Jessica]

Why have you attempted to reduce the complex thought

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

[Jessica]

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

[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"