Or make a case that all our actions are deterministic: cause and effect.

Citing evidence would be good.

could you have come up with something a bit heavier ?

ffs can't you talk about cars, or pets, or the weather, or something, instead of all this poncey middle-class pretentious bollox ?

😐

I saw that at the movees when I wos I kid but it wos totlly lame borring shite that dolfin in the zoo that kiled the chick wos probibly just borred and crazee so I think they shuld just let it go it didnt mend to kill her it wos just playing

😀

I was not well enough to go on OldFarts Exmoor ride this morning. But I like driving my old Honda Type S much too fast. On the back roads to the woods today I hit a vast puddle and it nearly pulled me off the road!

Why did I do that? Did I somehow choose to drive dangerously? Or is this irresponsibility a consequence of my experiences. I strongly feel like I chose my destiny. But how do living things choose their destiny when inert things can only follow cause and effect?

:asleep smiley:

I could make a case for it, but I'm not going to.

QED.

Any other existential stuff you need sorting out?

I wasn't going to respond, but 4 billion years of prior events have made it inevitable.

LOL @ Mark Datz

lol at ernie – only the middle classes are capable of thinking! assuming you're working class, your ancestors would be ashamed.

ernie: of all this poncey middle-class pretentious bollox ?

why should being able to think about deeper things than

cars, or pets, or the weather

be considered the exclusive domain of the middle class?

nice one bassspine

exactly, Andy

Because the Matrix wouldn't work without it?

Evidence?

The One said so….

Free will – the selection, purchase and riding of tyres without long protracted discussion on internet fora

lol at ernie – only the middle classes are capable of thinking!

……….why should being able to think about deeper things ……be considered the exclusive domain of the middle class?

Now I've checked and double-checked, and double-checked again, and yet, I still can't see where I've mentioned anything about "thinking".

What I did suggest, was perhaps talking about things other than, 'all this poncey middle-class pretentious bollox'.

No, "thinking" is not exclusive preserve of the middle-classes.

Although talking out of your arse comes pretty damn close.

KT1973 – Member
LOL @ Mark Datz

Makes some of your posts seem positively logical! 😀

On a quantum level, everything is probabilistic. If you ran the universe all over again things would be different.

My 2p.

i wouldn't worry about it ernie lad. it's beyond ya.

Free will? I'm married, it doesn't exist.

it's beyond ya.

Phew………..well thank **** for that 8)

Windows PCs have freewill.

I saw that at the movees when I wos I kid but it wos totlly lame borring shite that dolfin in the zoo that kiled the chick wos probibly just borred and crazee so I think they shuld just let it go it didnt mend to kill her it wos just playing

Superb.

philiosphy?

freewill is a result of quantum probabilistic effects on the synapses. But then I would say that.
(the difference between middle class and working class is that the working classes have to wash their hands before they take a p1ss. As a bike mechanic, I definitely fall under that)

Talkemada – Member

KT1973 – Member
LOL @ Mark Datz

Makes some of your posts seem positively logical!

true 😆

proper laughed my head off at mark datz! right place right time geezer. lol.

How big is it?

"On a quantum level, everything is probabilistic."

Yeah but quantum affects cancel out at atomic/macro scales don't they? [or get the half-dead Schrodinger's cat-in-a-box paradox thingy] Are you saying my brain works as a quantum computer? Is that a fact?

ernie, if you're going to be patronising, you left out football, whippets and pigeon racing. Oh, and a discussion on what flat cap goes with yer best jacket wot isn't too threadbare.
Personally I go with the free-will, I can choose to call ernie a total t*sser, or I can choose not to call ernie a total t*sser. So far I haven't made a choice. And I was born and brought up working class, and football and most other “working class” sports and similar subjects bore me to ****' tears. Just thought you oughta know, like.

LOL ! I didn't even mention "working class" !

And patronising ? Well if that's what you want to call it. I would prefer to call it taking the piss out of pretentious middle-class herberts who feel the need to impress others with their intellectual prowess……. I find it all really rather sad……..although also, rather amusing 😀

Of course if the truth be told, the pleasure I derive from winding up and baiting pretentious middle-class herberts, also makes me rather sad.

Still, they get a very easy run on here, and I reckon they deserve a bit of stick every now and again.

BTW, I can't help noticing the lack of takers for 'making the case for the existence of free will'. Seems to me as if poncey pretentious stuff doesn't have so much appeal after all. Despite the criticism of some, to my original post 8)

he pleasure I derive from winding up and baiting pretentious middle-class herberts, also makes me rather sad.

And so it should. Why can't you just be nice to people?

A week, I've been on this forum, but already I've noticed you are a particularly nasty and spiteful individual. Why?

As for 'free will', well…

Last week, I had a hospital appointment, and when I came out of the building, I lit up a ciggie. Some pompous bloke came out and started spouting off about smoking being banned in the hospital grounds etc.

Fair enough, there were signs, but I was outside, there was no fire hazard (it was damp anyway), and I was 20 metres from any building. So, I countered his pomposity by explaining that I, as an individual, had a free will, and therefore could do as I saw fit, rather than be forced to obey some pointless regulation. He stormed off in a self-righteous huff, mumbling something about a 'security issue'.

On reflection, I concede I could just as easily have obeyed the rules, done what I was told, not upset the order of things. But in all fairness, I made a judgement that there as no real, logical or valid reason why I couldn't smoke where I was. What harm was I actually doing? Seemed to me the rule was one designed to placate the HSE dept, and no doubt the insurance companies etc.

It's the same, sometimes, with riding on Footpaths. I believe the individual, with their free will, has the right to make a decision on their actions, based on their own judgements. I accept many rules are necessary, and serve society as a whole rather than the desires of the individual, but at times, are just a pain in the arse, and simply unnecessary. Sometimes, you've just got to act according to your own free will.

Yes, there may well be consequences, and these certainly have to be considered. Completely selfish behaviour is surely not conducive to peace and harmony. But an individual surely has the right to think and act for themselves, without some regulatory body dictating behaviour and actions.

I can be an obtuse bastard though, so maybe I don't lend myself well to the demands of authority. I dunno.

A week, I've been on this forum, but already I've noticed you are a particularly nasty and spiteful individual. Why?

It's just the way things are where I come from …….. everyone I know is a right nasty ****.

And in the last week, I've noticed that you appear to be a particularly dopey docile div…….where do you come from mate ? 🙂

i can go shit in a bucket, rigght now! ooof. coolest plop eva!

Flaperon – Member
On a quantum level, everything is probabilistic. If you ran the universe all over again things would be different.

How does that work? If you start from exactly the same place in eactly the same way, everything should turn out exactly the same.

Back to the OP, if our 'free-will' is really just a product of electrical signals between synapses (sp?) in our brains, then taking the above point to it's logical conclusion eveything is predermined by the starting point of the universe. If we had enough information about the start we could map out the course of the future in perfect detail. Electrical pulses are just elecrons moving around, and synapses are just made of atoms so we should be able to predict the patterns they will follow. Not saying it can be done, or is likely to be done, but it is theoretically possible.

@andrewh

I did have a long post about this and then realised that I'd argued myself into a corner. BRB.

Of course there's free will. How else could people choose between the voting options on X Factor?

to the Op…

NO!

I rest my case

I'm misunderstood. Not at all interested in impressing people just a bit bored and thought someone might have something interesting to say about it.

Ernie you seem to have issues mate! Something makes you orrible to people who mean you no harm. Is it freewill or something in your background that makes you resent people you never even met?

So Ernie thinks he chooses to be nasty but I reckon because someone was horrible to ernie he's orrible to everyone else.

Apart from quantum level stuff science seems all deterministic so I don't see room for freewill unless there something supernatural going on. Verging on religion here now: If you think you have free will then explain where it comes from?

Btw I strongly feel I have freewill

But was that by choice though? 😉
To misquote the oracle – The choice has already been made, what you need to do is find the reason.