> On Jul 25, 12:43 am, Joseph Humming humanisation.org> wrote:
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>> On Jul 25, 12:18 am, chazwin yahoo.com> wrote:

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>>> On Jul 23, 7:02 pm, Joseph Humming humanisation.org> wrote:

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>>>> On Jul 23, 2:09 am, chazwin yahoo.com> wrote:

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>>>>> Not everything is inevitable, but whatever IS going to happen will
>>>>> happen, AND whatever has happened was going to happen anyway.
>>>>> This reminds me of a newspaper astrologer who was send his dismissal
>>>>> notice from the editor in the form of a letter which read: "Dear Sir,
>>>>> as you will no doubt have foreseen..."
>>>>> Clearly, although the rest of history is determined to unfold in a
>>>>> certain way, there is no easy way to predict what is going to happen.
>>>>> This means that even though we are determined, it makes very little
>>>>> difference if you believe in free will because none of us can tell the
>>>>> future.

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>>>> I disagree. As individuals, we have endless opportunities to decide
>>>> which of many roads we may take.

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>>> You had no choice in your genes, No choice where you were born, no
>>> choice who your parents were. From day one you had no choice of your
>>> environment and cultural influences. By the time you started to make
>>> choices, they were based on your character and your experience, you
>>> were following the dictates of your will. It may have seemed "free" to
>>> you but that is ultimately illusory. Given exactly the same
>>> circumstances again you would have made exactly the same choice again.
>>> If you think this is wrong then tell me how or why you think you will
>>> have chosen differently! Randomness doesn't count.
>>> We are all in a succession, a chain of causality. If the universe were
>>> not like this then no science would be possible. For everything effect
>>> there is a cause. The effect of choice is caused by the volition which
>>> is caused by character, environment, genes, upbringing etc. etc.

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>>> The notion of free will is meaningful

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>>>> tp us, notwithstanding the influences that predispose us one way or
>>>> the other.

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>>> Whenever I make a choice I follow my volition. Only I can make that
>>> choice, but enevitably I make that choice based on whatever desired
>>> outcome I am able to imagine - none of this is possible without
>>> consulting myself and my experience. I exercise my will to the limits
>>> of possibility. The idea that the will is free is a religious myth
>>> propagated by priests whose dogma demands that everyone can open the
>>> door to Jesus. But that is false. I do not have a free choice in this
>>> matter, as I am unwilling or unable to suspend my disbelief concerning
>>> a thing I feel (and my experience tells me) is utterly false. God has
>>> made so that I am doomed to be damned.

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>>> The inevitability I moot in this posting is a much longer-

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>>>> term thing. I suggest that the forces, chemical or otherwise,
>>>> inherent in each of the components, or entities, active in the
>>>> succeeding phases of existence - pre-universe,

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>>> Eh?

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>>>  universe, earth, life,

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>>>> humanity - . drove that phase towards the conclusion we recognise
>>>> today. Thus, for example, the universe is not an "accident".

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>>> Depends what you mean by accident.

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>>> It is the

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>>>> unavoidable outcome of the forces present in the pre-universe
>>>> situation,

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>>> That is a determinist position. Not the position of a person that
>>> thinks there is a thing called free will.

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>> Wow! I'm well aware that there is a multiplicity of factors
>> predisposing us to act in a particular manner. Some of these - a
>> particular illness, for example, or a particular brain-chemistry -
>> can't be gainsaid. But the fact remains that over a vast range of our
>> behaviour we have the freedom to choose.

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> You are talking nonsense. Upon what do you base your choice if not
> upon the dictates of your self; upon the suggestions of your
> experience; and upon the suggestions of you volition. And all these
> are modified and determined by your experience, cause upon cause. From
> whence doe this spookey  notion of freedom emerge?

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>  We may, or may not, listen to
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>> a particular track; we may, or may not, watch a particular game; we
>> may, or may not, apply for a particular post etc etc.In that quite
>> comprehensive sense we possess free will.

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> You are making statements for which no evidentially claim is possible.
> If you accpet the possibility of science and the basis upon which all
> of its finding depend you a have also to accept that for everything
> there is a cause, and cannot arbitrarily make an acception in your
> personal case.

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>>> whatever that is. Actually...working backwards might be

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>>>> more productive. What kind of prior forces were required to produce
>>>> the universe we know? etc

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>>>>> I am a determinism because I am sure that it is true whether you
>>>>> beleive in free will or not. Like Nils Boar who when asked why he kept
>>>>> a horseshoe on his wall, having stated his disbelief in "luck", said
>>>>> that "I am told that it will bring you luck whether you beleive in it
>>>>> or not"- Hide quoted text -

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