> On Jul 26, 10:05 pm, 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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>>> whatever that is.

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>> Yes, I say that the five keys stages of existence - the creation of
>> the universe, the regularisation of the universe, the origin of life,
>> evolution, the arrival of the human being - were mediated by inherent
>> forces at each stage. And, of course, our personal pasts play a huge
>> role in the choices we make - and indeed in the choices we are capable
>> of making. But our cognitive development allowed us to break the chain
>> of causality. We have free will, constrained as it may be.

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> This is a clear case of special pleading bullshit. How and when has
> our cognitive development allowed us to overcome the universal law of
> causality?
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> You are suggesting that the mind can overcome the laws of physics. But
> by our own evidence we know that this is not so. we are not separate
> from the universe but an integral part of it, indivisible, and subject
> to its laws.  If I had free will I would command a troop of nubile,
> naked, beautiful female angels to dance attendance on my every whim.
> But in exactly the same way that we are constrained by the limits of
> physical possibility, we are also constrained by our own volition, and
> when we act we could never have done otherwise.

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>> 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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