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My Theory of Free Will

Old Things

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Here I would like to outline my thoughts on Free Will and the capacity that we have it. There will be several steps to this, but I hope it is clear at the end of this that you [all] know where I stand on this issue.

First, I should break up the human psychology so that we know what is going on when we have Free Will. This is necessary because, without this, there is nothing to ground Free Will in. People who hold to Libertarian Free Will believe it is a power we possess that gives us the ability to choose. They assume we are rational so we have Free Will. But my overarching point is that it is only when we are rational (by operating in the Truth) that we are Free.

First, In my view, there are essentially three levels of consciousness.
1) Experiences are made up of our senses which are the most conscious
2) Questions are made up of our reasoning and our short-term memory which are semi-conscious
3) Schema made up of our worldview and our long-term memory which are unconscious

So what happens is that we will filter what we experiences and question those experiences which then get integrated into our schema. There are different levels of this. It moves from shallow to deep.
1) Who and what questions get answered first.
2) Where and when questions get answered second.
3) How and why questions get answered last.
4) As the depth increases, so does context.
5) As context increases, so does the relation to the fundamental axioms of reality.
6) Given 5, since context is king in understanding Truth, that is why there are so many different opinions.

YkNmseI.png


Given the above, this syllogism may be helpful, but does not pain the whole picture.

P1. If humans’ perception is based on the truth, then they have free will.
P2. Humans’ perception is sometimes based on the truth.
Therefore,
C. Humans sometimes have free will.

So if Humans can sometimes know what is true, then they are sometimes free.

In a theistic framework (the only framework that I think actually works) I would state it like this:

P1. God chose to create all information.
P2. Persons are a subset of information God created.
P3. The information a person perceives is a subset of the information God chose to create.
P4. Persons make choices based on the information they perceive.
P5. A person’s choices are a subset of information.
Therefore,
C. A person’s choices are a subset of God’s choices.

The mechanism for discovering what is true is based on an openness of mind that takes the factors of what is in your schema and measures that against your experiences. It is then a matter of noticing the differences without holding prejudice against what you are experiencing. In a sense, it is trust in your experiences, but only so far as you can identify how they differ from your schema.

And this picture more or less depicts how I see Free Will in a nutshell.

ekScGJw.png


Some people I would like to mention who I have talked about some of this stuff with...
@Cognisant
@Animekitty
@ZenRaiden
@LOGICZOMBIE

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talks.
 

Cognisant

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Freedom of any kind must exist within the context of constraints, without the context of reality freedom has no meaning. I can imagine I have the freedom to go outside and jump to the moon, within reality that's not actually possible, and if I'm not constrained by reality then there's no difference between reality and conjecture.

If I imagine myself killing someone does that make me a murderer?
No, because I haven't actually done it.

If I'm not constrained by reality I could kill someone and whether that was real or imagined is moot, they could still be alive even though I killed them, that doesn't make any rational sense but that's what it means to exist outside of the context (and thus the constraints) of reality.

The entire point of free will is that people are culpable for their actions, if people don't have free will then we're just automata carrying out god's pre-programmed design.


So do people have free will? Yes, but not in the absolute sense.

We are not gods (yet) we cannot re-imagine reality on a whim, thus our actions have consequences, we have moral culpability, but we're also not entirely to blame.

Justice must be delivered with an even hand, not too harsh, nor too considerate, we must be sympathetic to people's circumstances but we must always demand that the guilty seek to better themselves, to become better people.
 

Old Things

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Freedom of any kind must exist within the context of constraints, without the context of reality freedom has no meaning. I can imagine I have the freedom to go outside and jump to the moon, within reality that's not actually possible, and if I'm not constrained by reality then there's no difference between reality and conjecture.

If I imagine myself killing someone does that make me a murderer?
No, because I haven't actually done it.

If I'm not constrained by reality I could kill someone and whether that was real or imagined is moot, they could still be alive even though I killed them, that doesn't make any rational sense but that's what it means to exist outside of the context (and thus the constraints) of reality.

The entire point of free will is that people are culpable for their actions, if people don't have free will then we're just automata carrying out god's pre-programmed design.


So do people have free will? Yes, but not in the absolute sense.

We are not gods (yet) we cannot re-imagine reality on a whim, thus our actions have consequences, we have moral culpability, but we're also not entirely to blame.

Justice must be delivered with an even hand, not too harsh, nor too considerate, we must be sympathetic to people's circumstances but we must always demand that the guilty seek to better themselves, to become better people.

I don't find anything objectionable in this.
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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P1. If humans’ perception is based on the truth, then they have free will.
P2. Humans’ perception is sometimes based on the truth.
Therefore,
C. Humans sometimes have free will.

this sounds like "informed consent"
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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So if Humans can sometimes know what is true, then they are sometimes free.

this still means that the people with the lowest "truth alignment" are the "least free"

which furthermore


means they have the lowest "moral culpability"
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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The entire point of free will is that people are culpable for their actions, if people don't have free will then we're just automata carrying out god's pre-programmed design.

ok, so do you believe in cause-and-effect ?
 

Black Rose

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God made me the way I am.

So all things I do were predetermined.

That does not make me a meat puppet exactly because I have qualia.

But everything I do and will experience was set up by God.

What matters I think is if I have a certain form.

What form I have will determine if I cause good or bad qualia for others.

The circumstances under which I exist (my form) matters also.

My form will determine how much truth I know.
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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Here I would like to outline my thoughts on Free Will

please present your personally preferred definition of "WILL"

please present your personally preferred definition of "FREE"

also, please let us know what your "will" is "free" from exactly
 

Old Things

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Here I would like to outline my thoughts on Free Will

please present your personally preferred definition of "WILL"

please present your personally preferred definition of "FREE"

also, please let us know what your "will" is "free" from exactly

Will simply means an action that is volitional which is a desire to want something.

Free simply means without bondage. When you are a slave to the Truth, you are truly Free.
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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Will simply means an action that is volitional which is a desire to want something.

ok, so will can never be free from desire (because desire is essential to the definition of will)

and is desire caused or un-caused ?
 

Old Things

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Will simply means an action that is volitional which is a desire to want something.

ok, so will can never be free from desire (because desire is essential to the definition of will)

and is desire caused or un-caused ?

That's a good question.

I would say that desire is somewhat of a metaphysical thing. Where do our desires come from? If they just come from our brain, then people would not do things like go on a fast or not renounce Christ in the fact of persecution. So their desire to stick to their convictions despite all odds seems to fly in the face of the brain causing our desires.
 

Cognisant

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The entire point of free will is that people are culpable for their actions, if people don't have free will then we're just automata carrying out god's pre-programmed design.

ok, so do you believe in cause-and-effect ?
Causality is absolute so from the perspective of a being outside of time our past and future exist simultaneously and are equally unchanging, but that's always going to be the case, you cannot have meaningful actions without causality.

We are not gods, we are constrained by reality and thus causality, that a god can know what we're going to do before we do it is neither surprising nor important. We cannot know our own futures, we can only act upon our present circumstances, thus we have free will to act according to our nature even though our choices are preordained from a god's perspective.

It seems paradoxical but again you cannot have meaningful actions without causality so the fact that you made a choice based on your nature and circumstances and thus your choice could be predicted (by a god) doesn't mean that you didn't make that choice because that's the only way a choice can happen and we are not gods.
 

ZenRaiden

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The mechanism for discovering what is true is based on an openness of mind that takes the factors of what is in your schema and measures that against your experiences. It is then a matter of noticing the differences without holding prejudice against what you are experiencing. In a sense, it is trust in your experiences, but only so far as you can identify how they differ from your schema.
This I understand. But what you are describing here is experience and learning from it.
I fail to see where this links us to God.
As for the diagrams you posted or made, I cannot figure out what you mean by them actually.

But more or less I tend to agree.
In so many words though you already told us what we ought to know normally.

I am not kind of sure though that schemas are actually all unconscious where it pertains to long term memory. I never heard anyone say this.
Schema is implicit in psychology, which is kind of unconscious.
But I can be perfectly conscious of lots of things from the past.
 

Old Things

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The mechanism for discovering what is true is based on an openness of mind that takes the factors of what is in your schema and measures that against your experiences. It is then a matter of noticing the differences without holding prejudice against what you are experiencing. In a sense, it is trust in your experiences, but only so far as you can identify how they differ from your schema.
This I understand. But what you are describing here is experience and learning from it.
I fail to see where this links us to God.
As for the diagrams you posted or made, I cannot figure out what you mean by them actually.

But more or less I tend to agree.
In so many words though you already told us what we ought to know normally.

I am not kind of sure though that schemas are actually all unconscious where it pertains to long term memory. I never heard anyone say this.
Schema is implicit in psychology, which is kind of unconscious.
But I can be perfectly conscious of lots of things from the past.

Thanks for your post. I do understand how you are saying that my model is just learning and I have sympathies for that. But you can learn information that is not true. If a person learns false information, but they do not know it is false information, then it's basically just conditioning or subject to propaganda.

When I say schema is in our long-term memory, I mean that it is more than just a tangible memory. Rather, it touches on something that we can't really fully understand.
 

ZenRaiden

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Thanks for your post. I do understand how you are saying that my model is just learning and I have sympathies for that. But you can learn information that is not true. If a person learns false information, but they do not know it is false information, then it's basically just conditioning or subject to propaganda.
Yes, we kind of always do learn wrong information. There is always some given and take in learning. So learning does mean also correcting for wrongly learned things.

When I say schema is in our long-term memory, I mean that it is more than just a tangible memory. Rather, it touches on something that we can't really fully understand.
Yes, I think what you mean is implicit type of long-term memory.
 

Old Things

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Yes, we kind of always do learn wrong information. There is always some given and take in learning. So learning does mean also correcting for wrongly learned things.

Yeah, so Free Will IMO is simply cutting through the noise to get to the good bits. In other words, it's less contingent on the information we are force-fed (which is an idea that has existed probably as long as humans have existed) and has more to do with desiring to know what is True. This comes at a significant cost because there are narcissists who literally do not care how they behave as long as they get what they want. Their value is not based on the Truth, in other words. They believe what is false even though they might know the correct propositions (which is why tey are so good at manipulating people).

We can, of course, cultivate this desire in ourselves. I would say the simple step would be something like,

"Don’t be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and turn away from evil." (Proverbs 3:7)

And,

"But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says:
God resists the proud
but gives grace to the humble." (James 4:6)

BTW, I want to thank both you and @Cognisant for not taking a huge dump on what I wrote. I'm not a lone wolf for no reason. A lot of people think I am quite a strange duck.
 

Old Things

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God made me the way I am.

Indeed, He did.

But everything I do and will experience was set up by God.

Pretty much. Yes.

What matters I think is if I have a certain form.

Can you define what you mean by form?

What form I have will determine if I cause good or bad qualia for others.

That's basically the great commission.

The circumstances under which I exist (my form) matters also.

I think you are more than just your circumstances. You have a brain. It is useful.
 

Black Rose

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Where do our desires come from? If they just come from our brain, then people would not do things like go on a fast or not renounce Christ in the fact of persecution. So their desire to stick to their convictions despite all odds seems to fly in the face of the brain causing our desires.
Can you define what you mean by form?
I think you are more than just your circumstances. You have a brain. It is useful.

It's called information.

All atoms are arranged in a position that has a shape.

So Animekitty has a shape old things has a shape and logic zombie has a shape.

This shape like a triangle or square can change in the light of a causal influence.

Meaning we can change by where the atoms are located internally or externally in us.

A person has a form in that they are good or bad because of where and how the atoms are connected.

So if we change that form we become different in our body and psychology.

Anyone who rejects God or turns to God does so because the atoms are connected together in the way they are inside them in the same way we taste or see or think changes the ways atoms are connected.

Any desire we have is based on where the atoms are inside us and because God has made us he knows what desires are caused by what arrangements of atoms produce these desires. So God knows all forms of humans that can exist and what they will do under any circumstance. Because humans are a shape and God knows all shapes and all conditions shapes can be in.
 

Black Rose

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What form I have will determine if I cause good or bad qualia for others.

That's basically the great commission.

No,

The Great Commission is about telling people that the dead will be resurrected.

People can spread good or bad qualia to others without telling them or even knowing about the resurrection of the dead.

What people do is based on the shape of their brain and body if they spead good or bad qualia.
 

Old Things

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@Animekitty,

I believe in qualia and I believe people might have a specific form to them, but I do not understand your view of Free Will given all this.
 

Black Rose

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@Animekitty,

I believe in qualia and I believe people might have a specific form to them, but I do not understand your view of Free Will given all this.

Free will to me is knowing you exist and acting according to your desires in full knowledge of what will result.

I also believe we are robots with qualia meaning we have a shape and that shape cannot decide to be different than it already is or will be and we feel things from it moving in reality.
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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I also believe we are robots with qualia meaning we have a shape and that shape cannot decide to be different than it already is or will be and we feel things from it moving in reality.

here's a good metaphor for QUALIA

 

LOGICZOMBIE

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When I say schema is in our long-term memory, I mean that it is more than just a tangible memory. Rather, it touches on something that we can't really fully understand.

PHANERON
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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We cannot know our own futures, we can only act upon our present circumstances, thus we have free will to act according to our nature even though our choices are preordained from a god's perspective.

does the chess grandmaster have more "freedom" than the novice ?
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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people would not do things like go on a fast or not renounce Christ in the fact of persecution

the promise, even the false promise of earning some "greater reward" can subvert our more primal impulses

every religion on earth has martyrs
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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the fact that you made a choice based on your nature and circumstances and thus your choice could be predicted (by a god) doesn't mean that you didn't make that choice

sure, we FEEL like our choice is "free"

but that simply relegates "free-will" to the status of an EMOTION

it has no basis in LOGIC

and as an emotion, it certainly doesn't justify any traditional "moral framework"
 

Black Rose

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the fact that you made a choice based on your nature and circumstances and thus your choice could be predicted (by a god) doesn't mean that you didn't make that choice

sure, we FEEL like our choice is "free"

but that simply relegates "free-will" to the status of an EMOTION

it has no basis in LOGIC

and as an emotion, it certainly doesn't justify any traditional "moral framework"

Then we need an "untraditional" moral framework.

First, there are emotions we'd rather not feel, that is why evolution made them.

We get bad emotions because bad emotions make us stop doing bad things because bad things will stop us from surviving. So surviving is the main goal.

We humans survive as a tribe because tribes regulate good and bad emotions together. but tribes can be stupid so we should increase cooperation by making tribes more intelligent. But what ultimately is the goal if some tibes kill others then this means because of modern weapons we kill all humans, and that is not good. So we need to become intelligent enough to make all tribes work together to regulate all emotions.

Ultimate goal = Ultimate moral framework

make humans intelligent enough to all work together to regulate emotions to survive.
 

Old Things

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ZenRaiden

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transcendance.
What is transcendence anyway?
Life is what it is, regardless of what happens say after.
To me my brain is here to solve this life. Whether there is something more to stuff is to remain to be seen.
If my brain is made for this life, I kind of have no point to break my head over something incomprehensible.
If by transcendence you mean something else explain away.
I think there is a lot of stuff in this life that is kind of difficult for people to even grasp.

I think one way to seek relief from the bleakness of life is challenge inherent assumptions of life you live by.
I find this sort of philosophy really more interesting.
It can kind of get weird because most people don't.
 

Old Things

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transcendance.
What is transcendence anyway?
Life is what it is, regardless of what happens say after.
To me my brain is here to solve this life. Whether there is something more to stuff is to remain to be seen.
If my brain is made for this life, I kind of have no point to break my head over something incomprehensible.
If by transcendence you mean something else explain away.
I think there is a lot of stuff in this life that is kind of difficult for people to even grasp.

I think one way to seek relief from the bleakness of life is challenge inherent assumptions of life you live by.
I find this sort of philosophy really more interesting.
It can kind of get weird because most people don't.

I would say transcendence is something that takes you out of your temporal existence. A miracle is a transcendent thing. Sometimes music can be transcendent. In other words, it's anything that pulls you out of the ordinary humdrum and in some responses inspires a degree of wonder or awe about what has happened.

The way I see it, there are three main beliefs about transcendence.
1) Creating your own meaning for your life. This would more or less equate to producing a legacy for you in the eyes of human history.
2) Using your free will to transcend. This would be something like Nirvana or other practices that one does to transcend.
3) Finally, there is a transcendence that is done to you rather than by you. This is the idea I have in something like the transfiguration of Christ or something like that.

What you say in the second paragraph is more or less my view of Free Will. But this is not the same as transcendence IMO. Now, a person can experience something meaningful, but that does not mean their life has inherent meaning. It's a question of purpose. Do you have a purpose that can outlast anything whether good or bad actually happens to you? And in transcendent experiences done to you rather than by you, these seem to give you a purpose that can withstand anything. We can seek transcendent experiences or put ourselves in a better position to transcend but it's ultimately something we cannot control ourselves. So, for example, if you pursue truth at all costs, you have a much better chance to have the opportunity to transcend, but where and when you transcend is not up to you. And once you have had a transcendent experience, it's something you will know. It will give you purpose.
 

Black Rose

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Now, a person can experience something meaningful, but that does not mean their life has inherent meaning. It's a question of purpose. Do you have a purpose that can outlast anything whether good or bad actually happens to you? And in transcendent experiences done to you rather than by you, these seem to give you a purpose that can withstand anything. We can seek transcendent experiences or put ourselves in a better position to transcend but it's ultimately something we cannot control ourselves. So, for example, if you pursue truth at all costs, you have a much better chance to have the opportunity to transcend, but where and when you transcend is not up to you. And once you have had a transcendent experience, it's something you will know. It will give you purpose.

I think that I have felt both transcendence and nihilism my entire life.

My purpose has never been to do anything or be anyone but simply to explore reality.

Reality is mysterious to me. So many things to wonder about.

But I did come to some kind of calling.

I want to create a.i. since 12 years old.

To do so I need to understand intelligence.

Consciousness is the part that feels transcendence in some way by the energy within a network.

So I believe that if a network can be created in such a way as to have energy flow within it in a proper manner we can understand the course of what we feel in the mysterium state.

I4QBnYS.jpg
 

ZenRaiden

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I would say transcendence is something that takes you out of your temporal existence. A miracle is a transcendent thing. Sometimes music can be transcendent. In other words, it's anything that pulls you out of the ordinary humdrum and in some responses inspires a degree of wonder or awe about what has happened.

The way I see it, there are three main beliefs about transcendence.
1) Creating your own meaning for your life. This would more or less equate to producing a legacy for you in the eyes of human history.
2) Using your free will to transcend. This would be something like Nirvana or other practices that one does to transcend.
3) Finally, there is a transcendence that is done to you rather than by you. This is the idea I have in something like the transfiguration of Christ or something like that.

What you say in the second paragraph is more or less my view of Free Will. But this is not the same as transcendence IMO. Now, a person can experience something meaningful, but that does not mean their life has inherent meaning. It's a question of purpose. Do you have a purpose that can outlast anything whether good or bad actually happens to you? And in transcendent experiences done to you rather than by you, these seem to give you a purpose that can withstand anything. We can seek transcendent experiences or put ourselves in a better position to transcend but it's ultimately something we cannot control ourselves. So, for example, if you pursue truth at all costs, you have a much better chance to have the opportunity to transcend, but where and when you transcend is not up to you. And once you have had a transcendent experience, it's something you will know. It will give you purpose.
Ok, I understand.
Well for me personally creating something just seems fun. I like when I contribute.
I like when I feel good.
Thats about it.
I don't really wish to be atemporal or anything.
I really don't have motives beyond what is good.
Or what is optimal.
I don't see much value in recognition.
I like making useful stuff, I like art, and I like to know shit, and I like sex and food from hedonistic point of view.
I kind of like work as long as it involves me doing something I find meaningful, but most jobs today aren't that meaningful to begin with.
 

Old Things

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I would say transcendence is something that takes you out of your temporal existence. A miracle is a transcendent thing. Sometimes music can be transcendent. In other words, it's anything that pulls you out of the ordinary humdrum and in some responses inspires a degree of wonder or awe about what has happened.

The way I see it, there are three main beliefs about transcendence.
1) Creating your own meaning for your life. This would more or less equate to producing a legacy for you in the eyes of human history.
2) Using your free will to transcend. This would be something like Nirvana or other practices that one does to transcend.
3) Finally, there is a transcendence that is done to you rather than by you. This is the idea I have in something like the transfiguration of Christ or something like that.

What you say in the second paragraph is more or less my view of Free Will. But this is not the same as transcendence IMO. Now, a person can experience something meaningful, but that does not mean their life has inherent meaning. It's a question of purpose. Do you have a purpose that can outlast anything whether good or bad actually happens to you? And in transcendent experiences done to you rather than by you, these seem to give you a purpose that can withstand anything. We can seek transcendent experiences or put ourselves in a better position to transcend but it's ultimately something we cannot control ourselves. So, for example, if you pursue truth at all costs, you have a much better chance to have the opportunity to transcend, but where and when you transcend is not up to you. And once you have had a transcendent experience, it's something you will know. It will give you purpose.
Ok, I understand.
Well for me personally creating something just seems fun. I like when I contribute.
I like when I feel good.
Thats about it.
I don't really wish to be atemporal or anything.
I really don't have motives beyond what is good.
Or what is optimal.
I don't see much value in recognition.
I like making useful stuff, I like art, and I like to know shit, and I like sex and food from hedonistic point of view.
I kind of like work as long as it involves me doing something I find meaningful, but most jobs today aren't that meaningful to begin with.

Obviously, I cannot control it if you have no desire for a lasting purpose in your life. But I can say that when you are old and decrepit you will wish you had more purpose in your life.
 

ZenRaiden

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Obviously, I cannot control it if you have no desire for a lasting purpose in your life. But I can say that when you are old and decrepit you will wish you had more purpose in your life.
What does lasting mean?
I certainly want to do a lot of stuff, but most of it I don't share, because most of it is besides the point, as I cannot be sure I don't get hit by a car tomorrow or die of cancer or something. Like I could say I want to do X, but essentially that belongs to category wanting to help.
Also what do I know about old and decrepit or wishful thinking. Maybe I will be old and wish to just die. I mean most of my life I was kind happy just being me.
Not that I could ever do much of that.
 

Old Things

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Obviously, I cannot control it if you have no desire for a lasting purpose in your life. But I can say that when you are old and decrepit you will wish you had more purpose in your life.
What does lasting mean?
I certainly want to do a lot of stuff, but most of it I don't share, because most of it is besides the point, as I cannot be sure I don't get hit by a car tomorrow or die of cancer or something. Like I could say I want to do X, but essentially that belongs to category wanting to help.
Also what do I know about old and decrepit or wishful thinking. Maybe I will be old and wish to just die. I mean most of my life I was kind happy just being me.
Not that I could ever do much of that.

 

LOGICZOMBIE

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Life is pretty bleak if there is no transcendance.

omniscient omnipotent god has no desire

and without desire there is no will

and without will

there can be no "free-will"
 

Old Things

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omniscient omnipotent god has no desire

and without desire there is no will

and without will

there can be no "free-will"

Seems this is a claim you need to back up.
 

Black Rose

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omniscient omnipotent god has no desire

God is a mind.

minds want positive qualia.

so then I presume any "will" god has is for positive things in this reality

how can an omniscient omnipotent god "want" something

it already has (and is and controls) everything

I think the problem comes from what is actualized vs what is the potential to be actualized.

Not everything is actualized so god would need to decide what to create and what not to create.

what is created and what is not created would be by a preference for what is wanted.
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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Seems this is a claim you need to back up.

is there anything that god doesn't already have ?

does anything exist truly independently of an omniscient omnipotent god ?
 

LOGICZOMBIE

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what is created and what is not created would be by a preference for what is wanted.

imagine maybe you're dreaming

and you can create anything you wish

unlimited wishes

instantly manifest

and after years and years of this

what do you think you'd end up with ?

millions of fans ?

slaves ?

worshipers ?


now imagine omnipotent omniscient god

it doesn't NEED food

it doesn't NEED pleasure and comfort

it doesn't NEED an ego boost

what does an omnipotent omniscient god NEED ?
 

Old Things

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Seems this is a claim you need to back up.

is there anything that god doesn't already have ?

does anything exist truly independently of an omniscient omnipotent god ?

Just because everything is contingent on God does not mean that God micromanages the universe. Creation does not entail dictatorship.
 

Black Rose

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what do you think you'd end up with ?

millions of fans ?

slaves ?

worshipers ?
what does an omnipotent omniscient god NEED ?

If the discussion is about free will then "god" would "need" people who are truly good not people pretending to be good. people capable of disobeying but choose not to because that would be novel to god.
 
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