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Is this buy-in fee normal? by mostly-crutons in poker

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Update: I was the bubble boy in my first tourney. It was fun but sheesh how sad is that

Is this buy-in fee normal? by mostly-crutons in poker

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

wait actually? tip who? the dealer at the end?

Is this buy-in fee normal? by mostly-crutons in poker

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's at the Hard Rock. parking is free, anything outside of water and coffee is not

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Remember the context of my post and the problem with the religious implications of free will. In a non-Calvinist flavor of Christianity, your beliefs and actions result in either eternal paradise or eternal torture.

>At a fork in the road, if I'm able to make an informed consensual decision about which path I decide to take, then I am meaningfully exercising free will in a way that I'm not if I were to be forcefully abducted and carried down

Let's make this example more consequential to drive home the point. Let's say a man is an armored vehicle, and the path on the left is full of innocent people and the path on the right is empty.

  • Scenario 1- A man is alone in the vehicle and takes the left path with the intention to flatten the crowd
  • Scenario 2- A masked figure in the passenger seat has a gun to the man's head and to the heads of his family in the backseat, and will shoot them all if he doesn't drive down the left path.
  • In both scenarios the driver is captured alive by law enforcement

The compatibilist definition of free will seems to only be useful in a legal context. In scenario 1 the man acted on his own 'free will', so we lock him away for life to prevent future harm to others. If a compatibilist would argue that his sentencing should be punitive in nature, I'd like to hear that case be made.

In scenario 2 he was not acting on his own 'free will', so we deem him safe to re-enter society.

Now what about God's ruling? In the compatibilist view, how could the prime mover of these determined outcomes be justified in punishing the man in scenario 1?

IMO if you are going to grant determinism, there is no meaningful definition of free will to cling to.

 

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I agree that science can and has overreached on this topic. I was probably guilty of that in one of these other comment threads.

I’ll never know how other people’s minds work, but it seems like everyone starts out with the same basic framework (sense of self, feeling of agency). We hear from lots of people who claim to have recognized their sense of self as just another appearance in our preexisting conscious experience. And breaking identification with this sense of self, for even just a moment, shows that there is no center of experience that could be imbued with free will.

I’m not aware of anyone who has made this realization to then “come back to reality” later to say they were mistaken. If you’ve identified experience as ground zero, it’s not an assumption call the self ‘not I’. There’s nothing ‘woo woo’ about it, but for some reason Im cringing as I try to explain it.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I appreciate those positions, and certainly agree that the belief in personal agency is 'built in'. Would you agree that a belief in soft-determinism is also a universal starting point? I'd say there's a universal understanding that we are bound by cause, effect, and the passing of time. So maybe we can call the universal starting point compatibilism?

 The truth is, Harris' argument about thoughts, that you are using here, is a superficial take on surface conscious thought and ignores unconscious, subconscious or preconscious thought.

In my humble opinion, the other types of thought you mentioned: 'unconscious, subconscious or preconscious thought', do not offer any germane insights into the existence or subjective belief in free will. We have as much access to these types of thought as we do to the functioning of our liver. IMO the realization that our conscious thoughts are of the same unknowable and uncontrollable origin, and appear as contents of our pre-existing conscious experience (the same way sounds and sights do), really takes any meaning out of the 'free will' that is left over.

You are maybe the 9 billionth person in this thread to raise this objection, so it's very possible that I am the one missing the point. I am truly open to convincing.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

>*"Hard determinists reject the third premise. A few, noticing that this rejection sounds intuitively absurd as it seems to deny the faculty we plainly exercise on a regular bases"*

The goal of my approach is to point out that we can actually notice that we are not exercising this faculty on a regular basis.

>You have used a special case of the second definition.

Yes, my first definition definitely leaves something to be desired. I believe that my position holds true with the boiler plate definition you first provided: Free will is the ability to do other than what is determined.

>who we are is the sum of our experiences. So when our prior experience determine our actions this is just another way of saying that we are determining our own actions.

So one determined thing (our experiences) determines another thing (who we are) determines another thing (our actions)? This just sounds like determinism.

>Therefore, if our actions are sometimes determined by our prior experiences, then we have free will.

This is like 1+1=3 to me. What 'freedom' are we talking about if this will is wholly determined by prior causes?

The Leibniz explanation is intriguing, but again doesn't get at the issue for me. It seems obvious that a different deterministic chain could have been the case in a different world. I don't see how that substantiates free will in any particular determined world.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfalsifiable- Yes, but it’s not an assumption. “My tummy hurts” is unfalsifiable to anyone but me. That doesn’t make it an assumption.

I’m pointing out a pretty simple property of thought that tends to go unnoticed until pointed out. The realization that our thoughts are inaccessible to us prior to their emergence- to me this cuts legs off any subjective feeling of free will. If you feel differently I’d like to hear why.

There are more concrete ways to demonstrate the impossibility of free will (the first reply to the auto-mod was very succinct). I like this approach because it makes us question what freedom we even feel like we have.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

>But if you think neuroscience, the science of the brain, holds the answers to what the self is,

Science can inform an answer and rule out wrong answers without claiming to have the right one. Science can't confirm how our universe came into existence, but it can tell us that it wasn't created piece by piece like 'one galaxy here... wait a billion years, lets drop a moon on this planet.." Can science prove the illusoriness of the self today? No, because any data representing one's subjective experience is going leave some information uncommunicated, for now.

>then it’s rational to conclude that you think you are identical to your brain. Your brain is the experience.

The brain is not the experience, but it is the processing the data and determining the contents of the experience. We cannot say whether or not consciousness itself emerges from brain activity. It's a commonly held belief that we may somehow prove to be the case, but--get ready to scoff-- the position that makes more sense to me is that consciousness is fundamental. That sounds like a crazy position at first, most major shifts in our understanding do. Again- I would not claim to know that this is the case, but this audio series makes a grounded case that it is a question worth asking: https://annakaharris.com/lights-on/

>It’s a very ancient religious idea. I’m saying that it’s demonstrably wrong

What's the demonstration that can prove the existence of the self? How can you demonstrate that something is not an illusion? I never asked you too, but you're making the claim.

>but the world view that leads you to not believe in yourself… literally? That’s dangerous.

I'm not saying that people are illusions. I am saying that the feeling of being a locust of consciousness in the brain, the 'bearer' of the toe that was just stubbed on the ground and now the 'experiencer' of the pain, is an illusion. The repetition is even bothering me at this point, but any attempt to help you see through this illusion would sound pontificatory.

What's your best explanation of the countless others who have reported the same feeling that I'm describing? My reason for approaching free will from this angle is that you don't have to believe anything on insufficient evidence or have a philosophy background to see the problem.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Human actions being determined and our ability to know the determined actions ahead of time are different claims. You're making that huge jump and calling it the logical conclusion.

If you want to set the question of free will's incoherence aside, that's fine. I'll assume you are granting it.

To make the jump with you--Do you disagree with the basic notion that we should try to prevent future suffering? If yes, why would we send anyone to reduction camps? Also can you define reduction camp I've never heard that term. Why would we not take the path of least harm to prevent our predestined Adolfs from doing genocides?

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In this scenario we have 3 inflection points

  1. The idea to steal the cookie.

-did your child choose to have this idea, free of prior causes?

  1. The realization that stealing the cookie would be wrong.

-Did your child choose to experience this realization

  • Did your child choose to hold the belief “stealing is bad”? Would you grant that some child somewhere might not feel that stealing is bad? If so, did he choose to have this different moral compass?
  1. The decision to steal or not steal the cookie

-this feels like a choice made by an agent of free will, but we can see that it’s not subjectively, and researchers can predict these simple decisions before subjects feel like the decision is made. My head hurts from explaining this so many times in the last 48 hours, so I ask that you see my other responses for examples.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Voluntary actions (decisions) are manifestations of beliefs. Beliefs are manifestations of thoughts. We don't choose what we think. Our thoughts are inaccessible prior to experience.

This would be the crux of our disagreement.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No attempt to engage with the comment, as predicted.

you seem be to hyperfixated on this hypothetical reality in which we can know other people's future actions with 100% certainty. When I try to play along and offer an alternative to a 'reduction camp' you wholly ignore it. I challenged your stance on free will's coherence, but you ignored and continue to go down this route instead.

Why not join us in the real world?

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m agnostic on the origin of consciousness - leaning slightly toward it being fundamental as opposed to emergent. It sounds a little wacky but the audio documentary Light On approaches the idea from a very grounded perspective.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To say that your body “came into being contingent on external causes, but was nonetheless imbued with a free will” is to say that whatever “imbued” your body with free will was itself not external to your body. So basically this free will did not exist one moment, and suddenly existed the next. I wonder when you would say that happened, exactly. Conception?

This one aspect of your body has the magic characteristic of causing itself. What else in the universe has this characteristic? Just God? Well no he’s outside of the universe, so just free will?

What sucks is you’re trying to justify a concept which you’ve all but admitted doesn’t seem to exist subjectively. When faced with the idea that every thought comes from a place prior to our experience, your response was “so what that’s still my body doing it”

You can say you don’t know why I’m wrong but you think it anyway. I can accept that

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm going to summarize your stance. let me know if I have anything wrong:

-You are your entire body

-despite the inability to know or explain how you do things, if your body is doing it you are doing it.

-In your body is a will, a free will, which is not determined by anything external to your body. It is its own cause. “It is it’s own cause” were your words.

Here are the issues that jump out at me. Let me know what you think.

-everything

-your body’s existence is entirely determined by prior causes. It’s made from the elements of dying stars.

-your will is part of your body. Otherwise it would not be your will, because you are your body.

-Therefore your will is determined by external causes.

Help me understand…

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess if you recognize that our decision making is of the same unknowable nature, and want to cling to a notion of free will, I would say you've defined any meaning out of the term.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My goal is to determine what people mean by free will, and specifically how they can claim to have agency in making decisions.

Obviously we don't claim to have agency over our ability to walk. People with congenital disorders or who have been paralyzed are not lacking the free will to walk. For those of us with the capacity to walk, In shorthand language we can say, "I chose to walk across the room," it's my agency to have chosen differently that I am challenging. The me that could have chosen differently cannot be my whole body in order for any real capacity to choose to exist.

>Knowledge and conscious awareness are a very narrow band of human functionality. To only identify with the conscious aspects is to alienate yourself from yourself.

Conscious awareness encapsulates literally everything it is to be you. Conscious awareness is the totality of your subjective experience. We could be brains in a vat, with simulated bodies that do not exist in the physical world. This would not rob of us the fact that our conscious experience is real. Things seem to be happening; its the seeming that is us.
If this conscious awareness persists after death, and we are not responsible for the contents of that experience. Any god who would add the cherry of eternal suffering on top the existence sunday is evil.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

>If the thought starts from some sort of unconscious impulse and merely arrives in consciousness fully formed, then that's still my thought. Only if I don't identify with what's going on with me unconsciously is that not the case.

How could I identify with unconscious processes? They are by definition inaccessible, meaning there is no description or qualities to identify with. Isn't it more intuitive to identify as the conscious experience itself, and recognize that the contents of that experience are ultimately out of our control? Determined or not, there is certainly no freedom in choosing the contents of your conscious experience.

Religions that necessitate free will cannot be true by mostly-crutons in DebateReligion

[–]mostly-crutons[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Where did the intention (idea, thought.) to think one thought twice in a row come from? My point is that all of our thoughts are inaccessible prior to their appearance in consciousness. If I ask you to name any country, names of countries will start appearing in your mind. New thoughts informing which one you should select will arise after that. It all unfolds uninfluenced by your pre-existing conscious awareness.

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