Mr.Stickels

Sorry, Truth*

"talked about how a belief in free will makes people more productive, while a belief in determinism makes people less productive." Believing in God on average makes people more happy and comfortable. Trust is more important then comfort, productivity or anything you can possible think of.

for info on the test go here. http://www.carlsonschool.umn.edu/assets/91974.pdf so as you can see this wasnt a free will debate as i said. It is a debate on if it were considered true, if the world would be better off knowing this or not knowing this.

There have been studies done where a group of people were told to read a book supporting determinism and then take a test. They had another group of people read a similar book with the wording slightly changed to support free will. Then they had everyone take a test on it. The people who read the book supporting determinism were more likely to cheat on their test. So based on that i was saying that i think the world would be a better place still if we all excepted it. Most social psychologists believe in determinism but agree that it could be destructive, so they just let people think they are free because only a select few people can handle it if they knew the truth, in their eyes.

"You are saying that a person using free will can become committed to a cycle of addiction (biological or psychological) against their will." I am a determinist...so I am not saying anything about a person using free will... I am saying that people doing potentially destructive things are more prone to if they think they can will their way out of danger. As far as the physics thing, i was going with your analogy and what i thought you meant by it. I didnt make it up, i said "If i understand you correct" . As for the definition of determinism i thought that was an obvious thing. If you werent aware of what it meant, i am not sure why you felt a need to post. The definition is as follows. "Determinism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. Determinists believe the universe is fully governed by causal laws resulting in only one possible state at any point in time" Its nothing mystical, as I see it, it is just common sense. ALSO, read my first post and you will realize that nobody has even addressed the issue at hand. Look at the title of the thread. "This isnt a free will/determinism debate." Stick to the topic or dont post here. There are plenty of free will/determinism debate threads. This is not one of them.

" Classical physics tells us that M does not move. It's as if the deterministic factors (comparable to F1 and F2) cancel each other out in magnitude/direction and produce a net neutral effect. That is, although M does not move, modern physics tells us M still has energy. Volition, to me, is the potential energy of the mind." I can agree with what you are saying to an extent. If i understand you correct then the "potential energy of the mind" would be thoughts and ideas Caused by external forces (F1 and F2). The only problem is that if they are causing "M" to not move then it is like neither of them exist at all. which still falls into my determinism theory. I am thinking about what i will do 5 minutes from now. I could smoke, stay on here, sleep, watch tv ect....I cant do all of them at once so even though they are all seem possible there is only one outcome that will happen. In your example even though F1 and F2 are acting and saying different things (applied to human cognition that would be the Smoking,stay on here, sleep ect..)there will only be one thing happening for there can only be one right answer. So since none of those other things happened that means that it was impossible for them to happen.

"You want people to accept the doctrine of psychological determinism in order to make better choices in life, so we can solve all the problems of the world [such as choosing not to smoke after learning of the addictive nature of smoking]?" I think the world would be a better place if they did. Given enough time and a computer beyond our comprehension I am certain that everyone will believe this. We could stop with our attempts at fixing things and just understand the "program". Once you fully understand the program, there is no trial and error. There is just doing. With math say you have 2x*4=16. You arent going to randomly plug numbers into "x" to see what fits. You are going to take the logical approach and come up with only 1 answer. The right answer. Applying that to politics has dramatic effect. Applying it to anything has a dramatic effect. We wouldnt have a bunch of old people pulling ideas out of their ass that they have no idea if it will work or not. Its like the person who is no good at math just randomly plugging in numbers until one fits instead of using the process(determinism) to figure out the only right(according to whatever the goal is) answer.

Firstly, we both agree that we are made up of a very finite and very law driven building blocks. " I would not dispute the fact that the particles which make up the human brain and form the physical basis for human consciousness act deterministically". I agree with that and is a very strong support for my belief. Think of a computer program. Its building blocks (1s and 0s) are very determined, they also apply to the cause and effect. You are bound by those things. You can look at the code of a program and Determine what it WILL do. There is not another option other then THE right one. You can launch that program one million times and get the same result.(assuming there was no degradation) I see humans the same way. If we agree that we are bound by those very basic things then how could we even fathom that we could act any different than what makes us what we are. Its like having some nuts and bolts and being told to make a living whale out of it. It isnt possible because the building blocks(the nuts and bolts) do not permit it. Secondly, I do not believe that knowledge itself is a direct result of volition. Volition I believe(correct me if a am wrong) implies intent. If knowledge came from only intent then that would mean that you could never gain anything from accidents. Only things you meant to do. Which seems like a viscous cycle. We learn by accidents. In science they say there is no such things as a failed experiment. Even if you didnt gain what you intended to gain, you still gain. I also do not see the acceptance of determinism as contradictory. I have the traits that i believe have given me the ability to see it. I have always been very strong in seeing patterns. I believe we are deterministic because of the patterns. If you have a set of numbers. 3.5.7.9 ect, You dont have to see what is coming next or what came before to know what will come and what has come. So in short I see determinism as a very complex pattern that can and must be figured out.

I have always given a lot of thought into determinism. I have concluded that there is no way around the fact that we are governed by the laws of cause and effect. This isnt a free will/determinism debate. What I am bringing up is the implications it would have if it were considered a fact among everyone in the world. I believe the world would be a better place all around. Once we see the world for what it really is we can begin to fix the problems and prevent new ones from occurring. I see the free will side as trying to use a program with no understanding of what makes up the program. You can only guess until you understand the underlying principals. People would know how to avoid the temptation to smoke instead of saying "oh, i can just have this one cigarette and not start again". Almost everyone who is in the process of kicking the habit is going to go right out and buy a new pack. That illusion of free will is destructive. Humans may have many ideas or thoughts at once but the fact is that everyone on the earth will always go with the strongest desire. Smoking is a very small and basic argument but the same logic can be applied to everything that encompass the human thought process. Which is pretty much everything. So in short, I believe determinism is not only a physical law but a mindset that could lead to the solution of all of the problems our world is facing.