Re: Free Will Doesn't Matter

	Duration: 05:57 minutes Upload Time: 2008-02-01 18:23:31
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjnTlSgyI0A) Hello Al, I'm rhetoricalmonkey's dad. Have you ever heard someone exclaim? Wow, he (or she) is phenomenal! Well, the fact is, we are all phenomenal in the sense that we are all natural phenomena. We have scientists that study the phenomena of the sun and we have scientist that likewise study human phenomena. Furthermore, sociology, psychology, and neurology (in the sense of studying brain function), couldn't be sciences if the will of the human being wasn't determined by the laws of cause and effect. But the fact is, no human can make a choice that goes above and beyond physical or divine necessity or causal law. That is to say, all acts of choice performed by humans are acts performed strictly in accordance to physical or divine necessity or causal law, i.e., we don't have free will. In this day and age, the person born in the US will likely grow up to be a cow eating Christian; the person born in India will likely grow up to be a cow worshiping Hindu. The variability we see is the result in the variability in environmental circumstances. No two individuals have the same personal experiences from the cradle to the grave. At no time would a scientists find it necessary to compound the explanation of individual differences with the pseudoscientific free will hypothesis. We need to apply Occam's Razor to eloquent and rhetorical explanations of free will just as scientists do. You'll note that I'm not arguing for or against a belief in a god here. This fact being stated, I find it humorous that most religious folk claim nothing can happen that opposes God's will; nor can anything happen that is contrary to God's omniscience. But they turn around in contradiction of that claim and say the human will is free from the laws of cause and effect. Likewise, I find it humorous, or maybe I should say sadly ironic, that atheists claim not to believe in a god but they believe one of the primary teachings of nearly every religion. In fact, teaching the notion of free will is the very foundation of Christianity. How can the promise of eternal bliss for some and the threat of eternal damnation for the rest be justified unless free will is assumed to be true? Okay, back on track and away from the humor and irony. The will is not free. You know this. Or to me you seem to be aware of these facts anyway. But something you don't seem to be aware of is the importance of individuals realizing that the will is not free. Tom Clark of www.naturalism.org worked in a treatment center for drug addicts. He notice that a primary factor involved in people becoming addicted to drugs was the notion of free will. The drug addicts felt that if they yielded to peer pressure or curiosity, then the meth, cocaine, morphine, or whatever, could be quit at the slightest whim, because they firmly believed they had free will. Tom became so concerned over the problems inherent to the belief that he left his job and now dedicates all his time to The Center for Naturalism. He tries to educate individuals so that they can beware of causal agents that have dire consequences, and so that they can be a little more forgiving to themselves and others. The largest and most powerful aggregation of behavior modification specialists in the world work for the advertising industry. I understand that the majority of the cost for most products in this country goes towards packaging and advertising, not the product itself. Of course, if individuals truly had free will, advertising would be a vain enterprise. As it is, advertising is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, business in the world. Words and images effect individuals' mental processes because the will is not free from the laws of cause and effect. But, of course, the brain defends itself against alien ideas just as the body defends itself against foreign objects. (That is the reason religious groups like to indoctrinate children as early as possible.) And I suspect that the person who hears or reads this post will automatically reject the facts herein without giving the matter second thought, should the facts happen to be alien to his (or her) present mindset. Nevertheless, a seed has been planted that may grow and prosper in the fertile mind of a rationalist but undoubtedly will wilt in the rock hard mind of a Fundamentalist. Free will is an illusion. Humans have been able to overcome many illusions during their evolutionary history. And a belief in God is probably less costly to understanding the reality of our situation than is a belief in free will. By the way Al, I really enjoy your videos. Keep up the good work. And again, check out www.naturalism.org for more information on the problems inherent to a belief in free will.
Comments
rhetoricalmonkey  2008-03-10 10:34:14 (cont2) we have to live our life as our sense organs and brain perceive it. We have to pretend the car speeding toward us is real, regardless of whether we are living in a Matrix or not. I have no idea whether the universe is only one of many universes, or only a product of our imagination. People's perception of the universe was different 2000 years ago than it is today. And in 2000 years people will probably visualize something entirely different when the word universe is spoken than we now do __________________________________________________
rhetoricalmonkey  2008-03-10 10:26:49 (cont) sense organs--i.e. computers, telescopes, radar, et cetera--have detected and analyzed specific phenomena. For the purpose of communication, names have been given to the phenomena such as space, galaxies, stars, planets, comets, asteroids, and dust. A name has also been given to all known phenomena collectively, which is, of course, the universe. Now, to say all known phenomena doesn't exist is to say the movie The Matrix is true, which I think is a bunch of bologna. Nevertheless, (cont2) __________________________________________________
rhetoricalmonkey  2008-03-10 10:23:03 Some day we may send robots to explore places beyond the limited life-span and physical capabilities of humans. We could not expect a robot to survive if it did not have a survival mechanism similar to our own. Bluffing, which has evolved in many species of animals, is nothing more than lying. The amount of lying an animal does is determined by the amount of lying he/it is necessarily capable of doing. Mark Twain wrote an ironic essay for humans on the Art of Lying. The extensions of our (cont) __________________________________________________
schrodcat  2008-03-09 23:12:44 Yes I am talking about biological organisms sensing their surroundings yet being part of the universe. Say, I accept your take, the dog and us have no awareness of our surrounding, nor anywhere there is in the universe. How do you explain the fact that we wouldn't deny that a universe exists? Shouldn't a universe without awareness remain oblivious? Yes, we'll build robots that might manipulate or disobey to us. But not if we give up understanding what makes the brain special, what makes us lie __________________________________________________
rhetoricalmonkey  2008-03-09 22:37:03 Agreed, some songs give the singer an evolutionary advantage via sexual selection, or via bluffing/scaring-away the opponent in a dispute. But I was wondering how the universe could know it exists, unless you are talking about biological organisms sensing their surroundings yet being part of the universe? Oh, and at this point, computers are merely human tools. But the day shall come when computers evolve into creatures that sense their surroundings, such as in "The Terminator," or "I, Robot." __________________________________________________