What is the appeal of considering free will an illusion?

How so? Are you saying that if my daughter died tomorrow, that fact could not be a source of discomfort by virtue of its being a fact? If you died tomorrow, would your parents be happy to learn the news? Or, would they prefer (if they could) to cling to the hope that you are alive, even against the weight of the evidence?

Facts are not happier than illusions in every case. That's a fact, so therefore you should be happy to embrace it. ;D

I disagree, suffering spurs us to raise our conditions. That, in turn enhances our survivability and that of our offspring. We suffer because we strive for improvement, because improvement satisfies the basic biological imperative. Without suffering, we would be content to sit outside, hungry and exposed to the elements until we died (because as awful as that sounds, we would not suffer while doing it--we'd be indifferent), and we'd leave no offspring (or offspring stuck in the same state). That would be bad. No deity is needed for that, evil or otherwise.

Even accepting that there is a deity a similar logic could apply. One argument would be: suffering is there to teach us a moral lesson about the imperfection of the world and ourselves and to strive to be as worthy as we can of the next (perfect) life. Without suffering, people would not strive, and without striving, more would fail to make it to Heaven. A God who was good could impose suffering the same way we impose discipline on our children...not because we as parents are evil, but because we pursue a greater good than our charges may perceive.

Or there is the dualist view, which you suggest below: without suffering there can be no happiness.

I do not believe they are illusions. They are real effects of neurochemical reactions in our brains. We can even measure them. An orgasm, for example, creates a very definite and interesting set of reactions in the human brain (which varies to a notable degree based on sex). If you were in an MRI scanner and had an orgasm, a researcher with the proper knowledge could see it from the scan results alone.

There is no rule that said that you must have free will to feel pleasure/happiness, any more than there is a rule that says you must have free will to feel the sharpness of a thorn on your skin. As Commander Data said: "We are more alike than unalike, my dear Captain. . . . If you prick me, do I not leak?"

 

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Religions were just the first ones to consciously exploit the idea of free will (or at least the first ones to do it on a large scale) as a means of controlling the masses. Without religions (besides the world being a more rational place) the idea of free will would have been put forth by someone/something else. Although I find it hard to believe that some other organization would have been so adept at using FW to control essentially the entire population as religions have been.

KRR

 

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I don't believe in free will at all! We all act the way we do because of our biology and upbringing. Free will is only an illusion.

My reference to emotions was only to say that the idea of free will is an emotionally desirable one, but that has no bearing on reality.

KRR

 

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P.S. And to be clear, Sarkus, I give "graphic" replies just when I see that communication cannot be continued in a direct manner anymore.

 

It seems you are missing the point of the argument I presented.
It is basically a truism, it shouldn't confound anyone.

It's true that suffering spurs us on to raise our conditions, but does not really help us or lead to an actual raising of our conditions.
Aging, illness and death, in their various forms, always overpower our efforts.

That is a frequent argument, yes. But it is essentially unsound.
Suffering pertains to the material, to the body and our identification with it.
If suffering would be conducive to spiritual awakening, then slums, hospitals and prisons would be full of enlightened people.
Spiritual awakening comes from proper spiritual knwowledge.
Suffering may push us on the way to seek remedies for our suffering, but without proper spiritual knowledge, the quest remains fruitless, no matter how much suffering it involves.

Do robots feel pleasure?

 

How do you know reality, if you have no free will?

Do robots know reality?

 

:shrug:
Any breakdown in communication is from your own doing, Signal - at your initiation and your perpetuation. And it really is of no concern to me.

But if you do have issues with what I have previously asked / written - whether in terms of content or style - might I suggest you actually explain them instead of acting childishly?

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Reality is...I have not seen any evidence to support free will. It all seems to point to us being a product of our environment.

KRR

 

Your argument, as presented, is not a truism...

Your argument:

The first line is an unproven (subjective) assumption.
The second line is, likewise, as unproven (subjective) assumption.
The third line is a non-sequitur... in that it does not follow from the first two lines... and further has been shown (by Pandaemoni) to be demonstrably false.
The fourth line concludes your circular reasoning.

There is no "truism" here, irrespective of your claims to the contrary.

As for confounding people - perhaps if you explain your position more clearly, without relying on claims of it being a "truism" and thus beyond the need for clarification?

 

Please restate your argument, as it is simply untrue that truth always makes people happier than illusions, and that is what I took you to mean. Some truths, I suppose you agree, make people unhappy.

You might be saying that all people only pursue their own happiness--an economist's or utilitarian egoist's view of human nature--but if that is your point, that assertion is not universally accepted. If you defiune happiness very broadly, so that intellectual satisfaction counts as "happiness", then I personally tend to agree (in other words we often pursue subtle intellectual pleasures rather than the more gross types of euphoric happiness that we often associate with the word "happiness"), but many people around the world do not. Some people even believe that altruists exist, who give even when it reduces their happiness.

You may be mistaking "improved conditions" for "ideal conditions." If I have a choice between living a life of squalor and then getting sick and dying, that is not as attractive as living a life of plenty, then getting sick and dying. Similarly some illnesses themselves can be avoided or mitigated through conscientious effort, and the possibility of suffering spurs us (*some* of us) to do things that help us avoid them, even if our efforts fall short of obtaining absolute perfect happiness and well being.

While I am not religious, I think your counterargument is flawed.

First, again, you make the ideal the enemy of the merely improved. Imagine a world without suffering that had 6 billion (or more) people, of which only 10,000 were saved. Imagine that by introducing suffering, people reflected more on the fragile and imperfect nature of this physical world, and looked to a more perfect spiritual one. It's possible that as a result of the new line of inquiry, more people would seek salvation, say 1 million. That is 10,000% in the number of people saved (an improvement), even though 5.99 billion people won't be saved.

Second, it is not clear that there is no overlap between the physical and the spiritual. In fact, there is no evidence that any human has ever experienced anything spiritual. Everything that seems to happen to us could very well to have a physical cause in the brain, including spirituality and religious belief.

Anything that affects our attitudes, affects our beliefs, spiritual or otherwise, at least potentially.

You may prefer not to believe the argument, or question why God relies on such a cruel means of spiritual revelation rather than direct communication of spiritual truths--all valid questions--but it's nothing that refutes the argument, it rather just makes the argument unpalatable to many.

If by "the quest" you mean the quest for spirituual truth, I disagree. There have been many religious orders (especially within Christianity) that use suffering as a means to attain spiritual enlightenment. Christians have been known to self-flagellate, Buddha starved himself and in some lines of Buddhist ethical thought poverty and a lack of material aids are vital because they teach you to detach yourself from the world, and thus overcome suffering. I am not certain a Buddhist could manage that without inflicting suffering first (and I am somewhat skeptical than any Buddhist has really ever completely overcome suffering).

Again, if you assume that all people embrace egoism, t6hen perhaps these people all experience a certain subtle and sublime pleasure from the acts of suffering they voluntarily undergo. In that case, you can question whether it is "suffering" in a strict sense, as they are presumably deriving a net positive gain in overall happiness from the experience. I doubt many of the adherent to those religious views would agree with the basic premise that their self-imposed suffering must give them a net gain in utility, or that all people react in pleasure seeking ways (whatever their subjective pleasures may be--and they may well include acts that seem torturous to most).

Current AIs do not, as we think of the term. Future AI's might well. Future AIs almost certainly will mimic feeling pleasure so well that no human will be able to figure out if their feeling is a mere facsimile or is "real", any more than can tell whether your pleasure is real or a mere facsimile. The truth of the matter is, I know *I* feel pleasure, and I know that you *act* in a way that suggests you feel pleasure, but I can't verify that you really feel it any more than I could that hypothetical robot.

What I do is I project. I know how I react when feeling pleasure, and I see you reacting the same way. For that reason I suppose that you have the same emotions I do, because I imagine myself standing in your shoes. Because the pleasure is subjective, though, your pleasure is ultimately something I cannot directly experience for myself, and its existence is therefore not strictly speaking, provable.

If an android of sufficient sophistication mimics my pleasure reactions as well as you, I'd likely conclude he feels pleasure in the same way as you. That you are organic and natural and he is not inorganic and artificial not a compelling reason to draw any distinction between you, any more than I can suppose that children birth from in vitro fertilization are "less sentient" based on their artificial conceptions.

Now, perhaps androids will never pass the Turing test, and so never reach the level I am supposing...but until it is proven that automata can never pass the Turing test, it seems likely that the possibility that we are complex emotional automata will remain at least a possibility (if, perhaps, an unpalatable one).

 

To align oneself with "how things really are" means
to align oneself with "how all things really are" - not just with some.

So for example, it's not just that the parent in your example would align themselves with the truth that their child died, but also with the truths about what it means to be a person, a human, a living being, what it means to be alive, to live in some particular time and place, and so on.

 

"Unassailable position"... hmmm... so do you agree that free will bein an illusion is the logical positon... an that ther is no scientific evidence that free will is not an illusion... an if not... what is the logical evidence that free will is not an illusion.???

 

The path of seeking empirical evidentiary support necessarily leads to no definitive conclusions.
As such, this path should not be taken when certainty is desired/required/expected/preferred.

The question here is why do people insist in seeking empirical evidentiary support even when what they desire/require/expect/prefer is certainty.
Is it because they know no other way?
Is it because of the values they hold?
Is it because there is some secondary gain?
Is it because seeking empirical evidentiary support gives them a sense of epistemic autonomy?

 

I should explain myself to someone who does not care?

 

So how do you determine when to ignore evidence... when it disagrees wit you'r beleifs.???

Im not certan about anythang... are you.???

I dont know who you'r talkin about as far as people espectin certainty on this issue (please give esamples) so you'r questons (below) are irrelevent to me.!!!

 

Free will is not an illusion, it never was. For all free will is, is choice. Choice allows us, obviously, to make desicions in life, and we are free to make any choice we wish. True not all choices may be logical, nor are the nessicarily(sp?) ethical, but there is still choice. We must simply deal with the consequences presented after the fact. And even after dealing with such consequences, there are then a new set of choices presented to us. We also have the choice to do nothing, and simply do what is asked of us in every situation. Though even in doing that, we still make a choice. In saying such, free will, or choice, is not an illusion, it is a very real, and very practical thing.

 

Hi LunarSun... welcom to the groop

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But mor to the topic of this thred:::

What is the appeal of considering free will an illusion?

 

Ah.

Misery loves company, and your camp just wants to drag everyone else down into your pit of "free will is an illusion!"

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Said the guy who evaded my queston... eh

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Sure. Whether or not I care shouldn't really affect you trying to resolve whatever issues you clearly have.