That we can test every choice, simulate their effects for analysis, even the ones you don't like, must mean something, oui? If we come with preinstalled preference packages (no free will), your choice will be determined by them, obviously, but the point is virtual choices seem not to be affected by one's preference package. — Agent Smith
To be is to be a mind. To be a mind is to be a decision-maker.
The world matters in the formation of such minds. Nature has limited, or constrained, the kinds of ideas that we can generate. Here one looks to the ecological conditions that minds adapt to for guidance. Nature has also insured that we can hit on the right ideas very often. Ideas are then not arbitrary. They are adaptive; they guide behavior. If the ideas are bad, they are rejected. The constraints on our hypotheses are tied to our creative potential....
My understanding is we make virtual choices. We imagine thus: If I select x (a choice), this is what'll happen; if I go for y (another choice), this'll happen; and so on.
That we can test every choice, simulate their effects for analysis, even the ones you don't like, must mean something, oui? If we come with preinstalled preference packages (no free will), your choice will be determined by them, obviously, but the point is virtual choices seem not to be affected by one's preference package.
Conclusion: Our virtual choices (simulations, hypotheticals) are independent of our likes and dislikes and for that reason we possess free will even if only in thought/thinking. Nonetheless, making an actual choice could be determined because the preference package we come with will play a significant role when doing so. — Agent Smith
Our will is potentially free — Possibility
Can you not imagine doing the exact opposite to what you actually do? In the little experiment I did on myself, tobacco, I don't touch that stuff; in reality, I chain smoker! — Agent Smith
A choice based on randomness, which is very hard to make — EugeneW
Flip a coin! Roll a die! Or something. — Agent Smith
We could spin the bottle but a mentally random sequence of heads and tails, or 1s and 0s is impossible to make without external agents. Try and discover. I say 1, what say you? — EugeneW
Sorry, I asked! — Agent Smith
Non sono mica Mandrake! — Agent Smith
C’è chi si aspetta che la burocrazia diventi immediatamente efficiente, rispettosa e comprensibile, che la giustizia sia resa rapida e imparziale, che la scuola formi una generazione di tecnici preparati in grado di affrontare le novità tecnologiche del mondo del lavoro, che le carceri siano umane e in grado di riabilitare i detenuti, che le tasse diminuiscano mentre il debito si riduce, per non parlare dello sviluppo produttivo, naturalmente sostenibile, che farà contenti gli ecologisti e gli investitori, che naturalmente accorreranno a frotte per finanziare il nuovo miracolo italiano.
Why Agentus, why??? Just try tow write it. I tried in vain. If I succeed in writing a random sequence of 1s and 0s, it would a true coincidence! — EugeneW
This definition begs the mutual exclusivity of a decision being 'yours' and it being a function of causality. A good definition should pick one or the other:Free will: One possesses it when you make a choice that is yours and not part of a causal web with causes external to and beyond your control. — Agent Smith
Again the begging definition, assuming that caused choices are somehow not your own.Determinism: Your choices are effects of causes external to you and are not in your sphere of control.
Gosh, that sounds almost like you're utilizing the causal web, input that is out of your control...Now consider the fact that, given a choice node (the point at which we're offered a choice), we judge the pros and cons of each possible option, something people say is essential to making the right choice.
So far, nothing a completely deterministic robot can't do. If you want to feel special, you need a description of some decision the robot can't make, preferably a moral one.How do we do that? My understanding is we make virtual choices. We imagine thus: If I select x (a choice), this is what'll happen; if I go for y (another choice), this'll happen; and so on.
This has little to do with free will though. I've had similar struggles, and have found that I have multiple parts to my mental functions, and the one that humans have (the rational part not nearly as developed in most other species) is probably the one doing the imagining, and the willing to quit, but it is the other part, the more primitive animal part, that actually makes the decisions, and those decisions are no more rational than decisions made by a rabbit. Free will has nothing to do with it. It's just that the part of you that wants to quit is not sufficiently in charge in this instance.I'm a chain smoker, a nicotine junkie, can't go 10 minutes without lighting a cigarette up. So, as I lit one death stick, I had to, I saw myself (in my imagination), throwing away all my coffin nails, my smoking paraphernalia (my lighter, my matches, etc.). In effect I had quit smoking albeit only in my imagination. Isn't that amazing? — Agent Smith
Please bear in mind that there are two stages when it comes to making a choice:
Stage 1. Deliberation on the available options
Stage 2. Actually making a selection
It's an incontrovertible fact that in stage 1, we ponder upon all options and we imagine what each one leads to, as best as we can given what we know and what we don't. This is what I've termed virtual choice. For n options, we can make n virtual choices.
In stage 2, all the choices have been processed and the one that we like is selected. It's in this stage, our preferences come into play, preferences we had no hand in determining i.e. we're not free now. — Agent Smith
In stage 2, all the choices have been processed and the one that we like is selected. It's in this stage, our preferences come into play, preferences we had no hand in determining i.e. we're not free now. — Agent Smith
But you have had a hand in determining your preferences. You just haven’t been paying attention. — Possibility
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