Thread: Is my reasoning flawed?

We do not choose who we become in life (Birth to death). This is impossible because making a choise on who to become, or who we want to be, is impossible without a personality to begin with. And when you have developed a personality, it is a result of outside events affecting you, which you do not hold power over.

Agree? If not say why, if you do agree keep reading.

In other words, if every event that formed our personality was made into pieces of domino, then going back in time - tipping over the first domino - would result in the same end result.

If we do not choose who to become, then our personality is the result of an unwilled process. Therefore our personality is a REACTION and not an ACTION.

Agree still?

People like to point out the "uncertainity principle" (spelling?) i believe in physics there are random factors, that in an alternate universe would create a buttefly effect with a different result. However, with my reasoning this doesent change the fact that whatever personality emerges - is a blank slate that unwillingly gets manipulated my its surroundings and formes into a personality that is still just a reaction.

I believe for free will to exist, the first action must be taken by the mind, but you cant will anything without a personality! The mind you possess, YES YOU, is not something you chose before you were born.

You didnt choose who to be before you were born, because you didnt have a personality to make a choise. Therefore, again, are we "constructs"

Im not arguing that life isnt "real", our feelings are real. I just dont think we were ever able to truly manipulate our path.

So i ask you, is my reasoning flawed or correct in your eyes. What are your thoughts? I know discussing free will vs determinism is beating a dead horse here, but i felt this way to look at it was... different.

I didn't really look at your reasoning because I thought your premise was flawed. You could have perfect logic and flawed premises, so none of it would matter.

What makes you think that it's impossible to consciously change your personality, or to adjust it to various situations? Why do you think personality is goverened by nothing other than outside/external events?

You cannot change what happens in the world, but you can change your response to those things.


In all honesty, Raziell... It sounds to me like you are trying to rationalize, and like you're trying to find a way to make it okay for you not to try. Good luck with that.

Originally Posted by inow

I didn't really look at your reasoning because I thought your premise was flawed. You could have perfect logic and flawed premises, so none of it would matter.

What makes you think that it's impossible to consciously change your personality, or to adjust it to various situations? Why do you think personality is goverened by nothing other than outside/external events?

You cannot change what happens in the world, but you can change your response to those things.


In all honesty, Raziell... It sounds to me like you are trying to rationalize, and like you're trying to find a way to make it okay for you not to try. Good luck with that.

I dont think you understand my intention/meaning correctly ill try to make it more compact:

My choises may be free in the sense that *i* can manipulate them, but they are not *MY* choises because i never had the choise to choose who i would become in life in the first place.

If you cant choose who you are, then ALL choises following is a chain reaction of events equally unwilled.

The idea is open to the fact that individual choises could be fully deterministic or fully "free" so to speak - but its irellevant, because the point is that *my* or in your case *Your* personality is deterministic.

Hypothetical example: You live your life, i live mine. Then at old age god decides "Hey, ill go back in time and switch their souls" this time around i live in your body, and you in mine. However i would now be you, and you me - because the events that shape the objects mind remain the same. We would simply be the same peope as before, just experiencing eachothers life. Nothing would change.

Basicly the body is an object, a carrier, that has no free choise on who it becomes.

Understand my meaning now?

Free will is a hypothesis that needs testing.

While environment and genetics set certain constraints freedom still exists within these constraints. If this is not so then there is no choosing whatsoever. If you entertain the concept of choice you must accept the ability to modify our vectors.

But what is it that modifies these vectors? If it is no more than gene expression/ chemicals released to environmental stimuli then the choice is made by these factors. These are liable to determinism.

If not determined either these chemical/genetic processes are not actually determined, or there exists some other factor able to influence choices, itself not determined (usually given as soul and/or mind).

Seems like on all the philosophy threads I say this:
Everything one does is determined 100% by causes. If you follow back the causes of the causes of the causes... you should find that everything boils to a single reason for everything.

Sorry for stating this in such certain terms.

Can you prove the causal principle?

I'm reading this book 'Sci - Phi' By Mark Rowlands.
In it he also said that our actions are governed by causes... So in other words there is really no free will...
Because our actions are then pre - determined by the causes and must happen...
Hmmm.... I don't know... to me i think there is always free will... Like wanting to point my finger at somebody just cos I feel like it. hahaha...
It'll be interesting to read about other people's opinions on this.
But i would also like to think i have control over my actions... and that i'm not some puppet...
External locust of control VS internal locust of control....

Oh and i just wanted to throw this in too...
That our brains have the ability to form new neural pathways = ability to learn and correct, this is known as neuroplasticity. So if our brains have this ability, we should be able to improve on our personalities etc.
Our personalities change over time through learning and correcting, adopting and adapting... because of neuroplasticity.

Originally Posted by smallfooties

I'm reading this book 'Sci - Phi' By Mark Rowlands.
In it he also said that our actions are governed by causes...

You are those causes, or to be specific how your brain percieves what's going on around you and processes that information. Your puppet and puppet master are one and the same.

There is an argument out there that states: If we know every piece of information in the entire universe and any given moment, it would be possible to predict what a person will do next.

Thoughts?

Originally Posted by Raziell

We do not choose who we become in life (Birth to death). This is impossible because making a choise on who to become, or who we want to be, is impossible without a personality to begin with. And when you have developed a personality, it is a result of outside events affecting you, which you do not hold power over.

Agree? If not say why, if you do agree keep reading.

In other words, if every event that formed our personality was made into pieces of domino, then going back in time - tipping over the first domino - would result in the same end result.

If we do not choose who to become, then our personality is the result of an unwilled process. Therefore our personality is a REACTION and not an ACTION.

Agree still?

People like to point out the "uncertainity principle" (spelling?) i believe in physics there are random factors, that in an alternate universe would create a buttefly effect with a different result. However, with my reasoning this doesent change the fact that whatever personality emerges - is a blank slate that unwillingly gets manipulated my its surroundings and formes into a personality that is still just a reaction.

I believe for free will to exist, the first action must be taken by the mind, but you cant will anything without a personality! The mind you possess, YES YOU, is not something you chose before you were born.

You didnt choose who to be before you were born, because you didnt have a personality to make a choise. Therefore, again, are we "constructs"

Im not arguing that life isnt "real", our feelings are real. I just dont think we were ever able to truly manipulate our path.

So i ask you, is my reasoning flawed or correct in your eyes. What are your thoughts? I know discussing free will vs determinism is beating a dead horse here, but i felt this way to look at it was... different.

I like the way u use relativism and objectivism (spelling)

You are quite right , we do not set up the circumstances that affect us entirely.
We are a product of our knowledge and circumstance. We choose how to react.

I wonder about the origin of thought. It is not all within concious control. It is not entirely down to the chemical reactions of what we eat.
We are all individual by our, combinations, the order we have, and indeed what circumstances we experience.
Pure theory -
If we consider the energy from every synaptic spark, could we have a trail of signals flying out from us (inaccurate visualisation, like biggles scarf. Nothing like enough dimensions). Considering it travels/expands at light speed our soul, built up of every synaptic spark, is a big thing.
So maybe when we are cut of from our body we can roam our soul focussing on things we have previously thought (a laser point being moved over the scarf, again simplified). The more we focus on something the more we enhance it, add details . So that perhaps we zoom in and become what ever we wish to for as long as we like. This is what we do with memory and imagination. A psychological mandlebrot.

That's the best representation of a soul I have conjured so far, is it so hard to see how our thoughts and experiences can make an energetic matrix based from us ?
I have tried to encompass as many theories as possible , including holographic.

Think of a computer generating a random number. not knowing much about how computers operate you can still infer that all computer operations come down to electricity passing through circuits and so a true random number can't be generated from that. You don't have to know or understand the whole system and how it operates. Now think about a human brain. Although we are still quite a way from understanding the complex neural systems in our brains, we do have a good understanding of the chemical reactions that a brain cell undergoes and we know that the complex neural networks arise from those reactions. So I have a question for the atheist free will believers, this isn't an attempt to mock you, I'm genuinely interested; If our thoughts are the results of specific chemical and electrical reactions, what do you believe causes the free will?

http://www.earthbreathing.co.uk/sr.htm
It could be that areas of the brain are activated by the phenomena mentioned in the above link, and we are individual in where we place information in our brain, so Our personality at any given time is based on the information stored in "lit"/active areas. We sort our memories and thoughts by frequency of repetition.
^ Just a thought, I am no scientist.

Originally Posted by Max Time Taken

http://www.earthbreathing.co.uk/sr.htm
It could be that areas of the brain are activated by the phenomena mentioned in the above link, and we are individual in where we place information in our brain, so Our personality at any given time is based on the information stored in "lit"/active areas. We sort our memories and thoughts by frequency of repetition.
^ Just a thought, I am no scientist.

I don't understand your point in all this, the phenomena described in the link is a process predictable through calculations and the storing of information still comes down to the basic chemical and electrical reactions in our brain.

Where is the proof of engram ? It is just as likely that thoughts are biologically stored in dna. Our physical make up is the information contained in DNA, and memory would be so complex in binary polar opposites, even elemental information(elements as I am sure you are aware are composed of many polar opposites), that molecules would be necessary. To contain all my memories from birth till now would be at least as complex as the dna strand.
Chemical=Physical formed from energy (E=MC^2)
So the gradual dissolution of chemical to energy, the drive to entropy, Is the separation(can't think of a better word but this does not fully encompass what I mean) from body to soul.
We are physical beings controlled by energy. Yet our physical beings are a greater quantity of energy than that which drives them.
Electromagnetic fields in an induction coil do not require the same quantity of energy that is stored in the steel bar it lifts.
Electromagnetic interaction from atmosphere through capacitance and inductance of the skull, brain dielectric etc. must have some effect on how our brains work.

Holographic theory - by my estimation in brief.
The big bang expands at the speed of light. It is limited to this speed.
The rate of expansion is directly relative to the light/energy put out by the drive to entropy of all physical bodies.
So at the big bang energy expanded out in all directions, the front line slows, inertia dissipates, energy that follows catches up then rebounds from the slowing energy.
This rebounding energy is gravity or space pressure.
Not all energy rebounds.
If we consider the rate of decay of the sun, we see the waves on its surface, the peaks are where rebounding energy is least the troughs higher rebound.
Consider a particle travelling a wave trace, At 1 Mhz it would travel 1000 times as far as a particle travelling 1Khz, yet light speed is constant ?
If we assume 1hz is travelling at 300,000,000m^s what of .00001hz ?
Unless we assume that a photon contains all frequencies and they are trapped within its boundaries .
But that would indicate space is full of matter not a vacuum. Hence friction/impedance upon light speed.
Lights inertia would be C , its interactions with other particles is how light expands from a pin hole source. It doesn't expand it gets particles to oscillate at a similar speed that show up as light.
If we consider space to be full of particles we can see that time dilation is perceptional not actual. As light cannot expand in the direction of motion as it is impeded but it can expand in all other directions. I do not know the rate of expansion within space but assuming it is C then there is no dilation issue.
Space looks black because it is almost at the same potential throughout. Not because there is nothing there.

Is my reasoning flawed ?

If there is no common denominator to every particle/thing there is no such thing as entropy.
So individuality it is for now .

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

You are those causes, or to be specific how your brain percieves what's going on around you and processes that information. Your puppet and puppet master are one and the same.

I dig that. The OP had maintained "I" as an aloof spirit, so -great- it was responsible for nothing; and -oops- it owned nothing.

Though my alternative sounds base, I reject your flattering suggestion "I" am primarily a thoughtful brain. I'm a pair of testicles, happily with brain to help them on their way. In other words - if you cut off my head I'd be "me and my head."

Originally Posted by Max Time Taken

Where is the proof of engram ? It is just as likely that thoughts are biologically stored in dna. Our physical make up is the information contained in DNA, and memory would be so complex in binary polar opposites, even elemental information(elements as I am sure you are aware are composed of many polar opposites), that molecules would be necessary. To contain all my memories from birth till now would be at least as complex as the dna strand.
Chemical=Physical formed from energy (E=MC^2)
So the gradual dissolution of chemical to energy, the drive to entropy, Is the separation(can't think of a better word but this does not fully encompass what I mean) from body to soul.
We are physical beings controlled by energy. Yet our physical beings are a greater quantity of energy than that which drives them.
Electromagnetic fields in an induction coil do not require the same quantity of energy that is stored in the steel bar it lifts.
Electromagnetic interaction from atmosphere through capacitance and inductance of the skull, brain dielectric etc. must have some effect on how our brains work.

Possibly relevant. http://www.thescienceforum.com/viewt...=292902#292902