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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/26/23 in all areas

  1. It seems to me that defining free will in a deterministic universe is a semantic trick. I have never much liked compatibilism for that reason. If the choice I freely made was determined by events set in motion by the Big Bang then it is not really free, and no amount of folk psychology (it felt free!) (no one stopped me!) will change that. And randomness doesn't really rescue free will, either. If my decisions happen at the whim of random antecedent events then I am not really exercising free will in making a choice. My feeling of free choice is an illusion. I just don't think a physicalist view can ever allow us to be truly volitional agents - our selves cannot be an instigating cause that moves downward through functional levels. We are not causal agents. But it's necessary to our mental and social health to proceed with life as if we are. Quite the conundrum.
    2 points
  2. Well, I took sometime rereading the thread and rethinking about my approach. I think that in refuting the OP approach we all, @iNow, @studiot, @Eise and even @TheVat agree in that some "free will" does exist although some limitation is always present because some conditions are always present prior to any possible event we consider. I'm not really sure why are we discussing so much. Seems we are trying to reach a good agreement in how that kind of "free will" could be defined. My approach was to call it "conditioned will" stating that the called "free will" (as defined in dictionaries) actually would not exist. What I tried to mean is that a total "free will" would not exist and seems we all also agree in that, am I wrong here? Only some "degree of freedom" exist sometimes for us to make decisions. I don't find contradictions in my approach but please feel free to mention if there is any. May be naming it "conditioned will" could lead to some confusion but as for now I cannot think in a better name for it. Is there any? What I don't understand is just about the "compatibilists" approach of both concepts of "free will" and "determinism" being compatible presented by @Eise. For me they both cannot coexist simultaneously. Now, @studiot claimed for a good example of the kind of free will we are all talking about and I posted the video of the dogs playing with a balloon in a beach. For me the dogs at the beach have made a choice with a high degree of freedom in their decision. There's nothing forcing the dogs to play with the balloon, isn't it? They are doing it just because they wanted to do it. I don't understand why @studiot finds it not a good example to treat. As for @Eise question: Everything in the universe obeys the physics' laws but we can intervene in it making changes like sending a space probe to mars so there must be some degree of freedom in the universe's "mechanics" for that be possible. I don't get what you don't understand about this.
    1 point
  3. The graviton would be a quantum of gravitational radiation ( gravitational waves), playing the same role that photons do for electromagnetic radiation. Virtual photons act as the mediator for electromagnetic forces.( Which they also do with a black hole. Thus a black hole can have a electric charge and field, even though photons cannot escape the event horizon of a black hole.) So, in the same way, Virtual gravitons would act as the mediator for the gravitational force giving the Black hole a gravitational field even though no actual gravitons leave the EH. *
    1 point
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