Free will is a waterfall

[Twyman]

When we see a waterfall, we think we see freedom of will and choice in the innumerable turnings, windings, breaking's of the waves; but everything is necessary; each movement can be calculated mathematically. Thus it is with human actions; if one were omniscient, one would be able to calculate each individual action in advance, each step in the progress of knowledge, each error, and each act of malice. To be sure, the acting man is caught in his illusion of volition; if the wheel of the world were to stand still for a moment and an omniscient, calculating mind where there to take advantage of this interruption, he would be able to tell into the farthest future of each being and describe every rut that the wheel will roll upon. The acting man's delusion about himself, his assumption that free will exists, is also part of the calculable mechanism.

[FerretParade]

Sometimes if you stare at a waterfall long enough it really makes you want to use the john.

[Luke B.]

Watefall

Exactly.

In a roll of dice, for example there is no randomness, only the shallowness of our perceptual faculties that lead us to believe so.

The concept of 'random' is a facet of our brains selective and limited ability to percieve the world.

[Twyman]

You know, I still have an unsettled argument on the existence of 'true random'. I could be perfectly wrong, but I'll be adamant about it until stronger thought sways me. The remarkable thing is, that all argue that there must be a higher power if free will is non-existent. Which I find rather humourous. Seeing as how God was meant to be the provider of free will. There's nothing controlling us except interaction in living. I believe.

I find the topic to be quite enjoyable in all the conflict it can raise. Philosophical, theological and scientifical (Among other branches).

[Burning Sheep Productions]

Is it possible for random to exist?
It's hard for me to understand how it could, but that don't mean it can't.

[Muninn]

Thus it is with human actions; if one were omniscient, one would be able to calculate each individual action in advance, each step in the progress of knowledge, each error, and each act of malice.

But being human, would he thus do the right thing?

[Twyman]

Depends what is deemed as right. Morals are a queer sentiment.

But anyway, it was merely an example. If one had the power to do so, one would be able to calculate each action.

If one had the power to do so, one would take advantage of the power. I know I would. But that is not in question. It's far too predictable!

[Muninn]

It's because it's predictable that I imagine it's what would happen.

[_SeHT]

And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom."

And he answered:

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.

And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their won pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.


--- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

[Tom Flapwell]

you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.

Which goes well with what DCS once said (from my memory): "Freedom is like sex -- America can't stop talking about it, while Canada and most of Europe just shut up and practice it."

[Burning Sheep Productions]

Wow, did he come up with that himself?

[Tom Flapwell]

I don't know. DCS, are you reading this?

[Bocaj Claw]

Are they really still practicing it? I would have thought they'd be good at it by now.

[Muninn]

Which goes well with what DCS once said (from my memory): "Freedom is like sex -- America can't stop talking about it, while Canada and most of Europe just shut up and practice it."

It reminds me of a Marlene Dietreich quote, "In Europe sex is a fact, in America it is an obsession."

[Steve the Pocket]

Wow, did he come up with that himself?

Sounds like something he'd say. I know he's said something similar in the past:

We're the intellectual and spiritual descendants of Puritanism, folks, and we're overcompensating badly for it to this day, which is why we can't shut up about sex and can't stop looking for it in everything and believing it should be everywhere. People in a lot of countries, who are not so inhibited by history, just have sex, and then they get on with their lives.