Re: [Mind's Eye] Re: My fellow zombies

When you say you can do this and do that it is your reason which is at
work , and the reason itself is bound by the depth of your
understanding. It takes a lot of time , patience and introspection to
fine tone your understanding , otherwise you will just keep on conning
yourself that it is in your hands to open or close your fist , which
apparently is to prove to yourself that you are free. But , my friend
Lee , your reason is not in your hands rather you are in its grip and
when your reason matures due to considerable deliberations , you will
realize that you are under the control of your faculties and not vice
verse.

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 5:19 PM, Lee Douglas <leerevdouglas@gmail.com> wrote:
> Heheh it always comes back to this discussion dosen't it?
>
> RP it is of course possible to act in a contrary way to your nature,
> isn't it.
>
> I am largley an honest man, I would not steal the property of another,
> but I could, I could make that choice and perform that action.
>
> Let me make it clear, we can only choose from a limited number of
> choices, we do not have unfettered choice, I could never fly by myself
> unaided by science.  I can though choose to go back to bed instead of
> go to work, I can choose what route I take to get me to a place.
>
> All of our choices come with consequences and yes truely these
> concequnes may indeed colour our choices, but we can still choose to
> act in a way that brings about bad consequences, we are free to do
> that.
>
> On Aug 2, 8:53 pm, RP Singh <123...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Of the various choices before you , you choose to do that which your
>> nature decides upon at any given moment. You may let go an opportunity
>> now to fiercely grasp at a later moment. The choice, of course , is
>> yours but you are under the control of various motivating forces
>> which, taking control of your very free will, make you do that which
>> the strongest force within you at a given moment wants to be done.
>> That which you do today you will not do tomorrow and all with a
>> seemingly free will. You can con yourself by opening and closing your
>> grip that you are the master , but you are not. It is only your
>> reasoning processes which are at play , which take control over you at
>> times just as your basic desires. When you think it appears that you
>> are thinking freely but actually it is some part of your personality
>> which is carrying you along.  If you take psycho-tropic drugs you will
>> think and act in a bizarre manner but with what to you is free will.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 12:14 AM, Jo <jojocasame...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I don't understand how some can say we don't have free will. You can
>> > choose to do anything you want at any given time. How is that not free
>> > will?
>>
>> > On Aug 2, 12:51 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> "We have access to a technology that would have looked like sorcery in
>> >> Descartes's day: the ability to peer inside someone's head and read
>> >> their thoughts. Unfortunately, that doesn't take us any nearer to
>> >> knowing whether they are sentient. "Even if you measure brainwaves,
>> >> you can never know exactly what experience they represent," says
>> >> psychologist Bruce Hood at the University of Bristol, UK.  If
>> >> anything, brain scanning has undermined Descartes's maxim. You, too,
>> >> might be a zombie. "I happen to be one myself," says Stanford
>> >> University philosopher Paul Skokowski. "And so, even if you don't
>> >> realise it, are you." Skokowski's assertion is based on the belief,
>> >> particularly common among neuroscientists who study brain scans, that
>> >> we do not have free will. There is no ghost in the machine; our
>> >> actions are driven by brain states that lie entirely beyond our
>> >> control. "I think, therefore I am" might be an illusion.
>> >> So, it may well be that you live in a computer simulation in which you
>> >> are the only self-aware creature. I could well be a zombie and so
>> >> could you. Have an interesting day." (from a recent New Scientist)
>>
>> >> We range over debates in free will and what it is to be human. So far
>> >> we haven't established free will or even that we are not merely
>> >> avatars in 'something else's game'.
>>
>> >> I wonder whether there are advantages in considering ourselves as
>> >> creatures limited by programming and also capable of it?- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -