"God" means... *inflammatory*

[Kinslaughterer]

You can see instinct in a fossil but you can tell an amazing amount about the brain by looking at a skull.

Fist you should remember than all animals have developed the means to tell good food from bad natural selection. Those who eat poisonous foods die and don't reproduce anymore while those avoiding poisonous foods rather by luck or experience survive to produce more offspring and may pass on the food sensitivity.

We have many non-essential parts like tails, various organs and although essential notoriously bad backs. Intelligence however is not fully understood but I think pure knowledge rather than sensory aversion or attraction is a different mechanism. Snakes don't really learn what to eat its already encoded from successful ancestors.
The ancestors of humans were experiementers thats why juicy berrys look good despite the potential for poison. I think our ancestors were gamblers who tried the most wide variety of food and it paid off.
Consider you can't eat raw red meat and digest it well yet your not too distant ancestor could. Why take away this advantage? If you don't use it you lose it. I think we never develop an true instinctual aversion/attraction and it paid off in eating food like fish, nuts, grains etc that other animals in our eco-niche never experience or had an aversion too.

[Fist and Faith]

Loremaster, that's a remarkably interesting bit of information! Thanks! Are you aware of any cases to support the instinct-inhibiting theory, as opposed to what I'm sure are thousands of cases proving the behavior-inhibiting idea? I mean, have any people with frontal lobe damage shown what seems to be instinctual knowledge of things they are not known to have known prior to the damage?

Kins, it's almost 2am for me. I have to sleep now. I'll read yours tomorrow.

Most educational! Thanks, guys!!

[Loredoctor]

Loremaster, that's a remarkably interesting bit of information! Thanks! Are you aware of any cases to support the instinct-inhibiting theory, as opposed to what I'm sure are thousands of cases proving the behavior-inhibiting idea? I mean, have any people with frontal lobe damage shown what seems to be instinctual knowledge of things they are not known to have known prior to the damage?

Thanks, Fist! I will check into your theory.

Good night, my friend.

[Avatar]

Fascinating posts gentlemen. I tend towards Kins point of view there, and LoreMasters as well, with one fundamental difference, namely that I believe in free will.

No matter what ou rknowledge and our impulses, we have the ability to override or control them. The guy who chooses to sleep on the railroad tracks chose to do so. He had the option of doing so or not.

Knowledge or feelings may encourage some action, but they neither force it, nor make it inevitable. There is always a choice.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

I, of course, agree with Avatar regarding free will. It's one of those cases of direct experience I mentioned earlier. I feel my own free will as clearly as I feel anything else. And I feel a difference between it and my love of chocolate, Bach, and women. But, to my recollection, Loremaster doesn't get involved in free will discussions. heh

You can see instinct in a fossil but you can tell an amazing amount about the brain by looking at a skull.

To what degree of certainty? I don't know how the knowledge is arrived at. Are the fossils compared with skulls of living things, and it's assumed that the fossil's brain worked most like the living creature it most closely matches? Or do we see fossil skulls that look like they would hold a brain like ours, but without room for a certain brain structure we possess, and assume the fossil creature's brain worked the way people with that structure damaged work? I got nothing! Just random ideas.

If you don't use it you lose it.

Is an actual advantage to not having it required for it to be lost?

[Lord Mhoram]

Avatar,

No matter what our knowledge and our impulses, we have the ability to override or control them. The guy who chooses to sleep on the railroad tracks chose to do so. He had the option of doing so or not.

I'm not so sure. As a human, the guy who slept on the railroad tracks was bound to die. If this is so, why is it strange to think he was bound to die a certain way?

[Avatar]

Bound by whom?

--A

[Marv]

if we have no free will, what role does morality play in our lives?
(just a thought)

[Lord Mhoram]

Avatar,

Well you can look at it different ways. Who knows what culture he lived in? What society? When and where we are born is so important in the outcome of our lives and the direction it takes - as well as our deaths.

But you can look at it from physics too. Take the classic example of a game of pool: Every ball is moving with a particular velocity and spin. The elasticity of the cushions and friction of the felt can be calculated. With a properly programmed computer, you can determine exactly where every ball on the table will come to rest. It's all predetermined. The entire universe is like one, huge pool table. Given a large enough computer, one could calculate and predetermine the future sequence of any and every event. Even your thoughts and emotions are events predetermined by the same classical laws of physics.

[Fist and Faith]

Given a large enough computer, one could calculate and predetermine the future sequence of any and every event. Even your thoughts and emotions are events predetermined by the same classical laws of physics.

Says you! And Loremaster, and Nathan. But I say free will exists; that we are more than glorified pool balls.

[danlo]

AE-"God does not roll dice" (if you believe in God, then again I suppose it's your free will not to...)

[Loredoctor]

AE-"God does not roll dice"

That's because God gave up being a dungeon master for this universe.

[Avatar]

AE-"God does not roll dice"

Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.

Well you can look at it different ways. Who knows what culture he lived in? What society? When and where we are born is so important in the outcome of our lives and the direction it takes - as well as our deaths.

Your society and upbringing are indeed important in the outcome of our lives, our diection, and perhaps even our deaths. But the fact that I was born in South Africa does not determine that I will kill myself, or whatever. Free will trumps every bit of environment and conditioning. You could be raised in an environment where domestic violence was the norm. And yet, you can choose not to beat your wife. That upbringing does not determine anything about you. At most, it can predispose you toward a certain course. But your will can alter that course any time you choose to exert it.

But you can look at it from physics too. Take the classic example of a game of pool: Every ball is moving with a particular velocity and spin. The elasticity of the cushions and friction of the felt can be calculated. With a properly programmed computer, you can determine exactly where every ball on the table will come to rest. It's all predetermined. The entire universe is like one, huge pool table. Given a large enough computer, one could calculate and predetermine the future sequence of any and every event. Even your thoughts and emotions are events predetermined by the same classical laws of physics.

Really? I would love to know how the laws of physics predict that I will either drop my pen or hold onto it. Or that I will choose steak for dinner, instead of lamb. Or decide to go out because I'm toolazy to cook.

Sorry LM, I just don't buy it. See, I can understand that certain laws dictate the way that chemicals are released in my brain in response to stimuli, but if I can override it, or change my mind, or resist temptation, then there is no such thing as predestination.

The only thing that is predetermined for us, (as far as we know), is that we will die. When, where, how, all those things are variables. When I was born, nothing tagged me with a "die of heart attack in 56 years" sign.

--A

[Loredoctor]

Sorry LM, I just don't buy it. See, I can understand that certain laws dictate the way that chemicals are released in my brain in response to stimuli, but if I can override it, or change my mind, or resist temptation, then there is no such thing as predestination.

But the mind is doing the changing. Since your thoughts are organic in origin therefore organic processes are altering themselves, otherwise where are the thoughts originating? The brain is the source of thinking/consciousness, so thoughts have to come from that.

[Avatar]

They do. But it is impossible to predict what the result will be, and even more impossible to ensure that a certain result/event happens.

Finn I think raises an interesting point. If there is no free will, then nobody is responsible for their actions. They are merely carrying out their programming. Thus we canot condemn somebody for murder, unless we accept that he had the option to ot murder.

If he didn't, if, in other words, it was inevitable that he murder, and nothing would prevent it, he cannot be to blame.

I prefer personal responsibility.

--A

[Loredoctor]

They do. But it is impossible to predict what the result will be, and even more impossible to ensure that a certain result/event happens.

Finn I think raises an interesting point. If there is no free will, then nobody is responsible for their actions. They are merely carrying out their programming. Thus we canot condemn somebody for murder, unless we accept that he had the option to ot murder.

If he didn't, if, in other words, it was inevitable that he murder, and nothing would prevent it, he cannot be to blame.

I prefer personal responsibility.

--A

I disagree. Laws against murder are prohibitory. If animals are stopped doing certain behaviours by certain reactionary stimuli then how difficult is it to think that humans are stopped by exposing them to stimuli, inflicted or vicarious.

And you can certainly argue that given that there is no free will and we remove all blame of the murderer, that further murders happen because we took away the negative consequences - criminal punishment.

[Baradakas]

LM said :

I disagree. Laws against murder are prohibitory.

Keep in mind however, Lore, that a prohibotory law exists to combat free will based on negative outcomes. The existence of such a law stands as a mandate of free will, otherwise there would be no such thing as murder, rape etc. i.e. the law against murder exists to dissuade the free willed action of killing. To dissuade is to "turn aside" from a decision (free will) and such a decision (to kill or not to kill) is made with the concious understanding of such consequences. Thus the man who commits murder, even while aware of said prohibotory law, has done so of his own free will (barring mental illness, drug hallucination or the specious "crime of passion" defense). I do however believe that predestination does exist, in that we are destined to take a particular path throughout our lives, however, the actions decisions and beliefs that we make during this time are our own to make. (see the movie Donnie Darko to see what I mean) (oh, also, not the best movie, but the concept is sound)

Had to throw in my two cents.

-B

[Loredoctor]

Well, my example was to show how murder can be reconciled in a universe of no free will, and how people still are guilty to some extent.

[Avatar]

Excellent post Barad, I agree, except for the bit about predestination.

If there is no free will, then all murder is inevitable. Indeed, everything is inevitable.

In a universe without free will, then neither murder nor anything else needs to be reconciled. It happened because it was meant to.

--A

[Baradakas]

I understand that, I guess my point was to state that a world with laws must be a world with free will, as any "murder" in a world without free will would be predestined and theoretically unpunishable. (not to say that a tool cannot be punished, only that it would be illogical to do so.

-B