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₿rent

Yeah read all about it here :P

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13259270-free-will

Brisket 1w ago 💬 2

Free will is not what most people think it is.

We have no direct control of our thoughts, feelings or actions despite our desire to believe we do.

I haven't read the book but I'm sure I'd probably agree with most of his arguments. I'd probably contest his framing.

Free will is related purely to the agreements we make. The sky is blue, the earth is round, bad people go to hell, authority is unquestionable, etc. Free will is the ability to create definitions & ultimately beliefs. Most don't exercise their free will, they don't question their beliefs. They just take it all as fact & assume that they can't change the nature of their reality. Most people don't break their conditioning from childhood. They don't explore the beliefs that are in their subconscious.

Our thoughts, feelings & actions arise as result of our beliefs & definitions. You can't even experience an emotion or thought without first having a belief. Everything you do, every action you take, is because you believe it's in your best interest.

Not everything you do is in your best interest.

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₿rent 1w ago

Do beliefs have causes?

Brisket 1w ago 💬 2

Yes - they're the result of agreements made

₿rent 1w ago

Do “agreements made” have causes?

Brisket 1w ago 💬 1

They're just choices.

I can choose to believe you're capable of having a meaningful discussion or I can choose to believe you're troll.

There is no cause, it's the individual that gives things meaning.

This is free choice.

₿rent 1w ago

Not trolling, just trying to find the reasoning behind your position.

So is “the individual” the only thing in the universe for which antecedent conditions don’t exert a causal effect — at least, not completely — or are there other things, too? What about non-human minds, like animals, also first movers?

And, do you have a theory of how the individual is exempt from everything else we observe, which seems to be part of the causal chain?

This Includes the parts of the human brain that we have observed, for instance with fMRI. The studies where researchers looking at brain imaging know the actions the subject was about to take, a second or two before the subjects were aware of it themselves, would need some explanation of how their choices were actually free of prior causes, yet still predictable.