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   Author  Topic: Free will and the meaning of life  (Read 2438 times)
Blunderov
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Re:Free will and the meaning of life
« Reply #15 on: 2005-05-05 03:02:21 »
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"It seems like a true paradox cannot be solved".

I think it may have been GK Chesterton who remarked (something like); "paradox is truth standing on her head to to attract attention."

Similarly, a good oxymoron does not leave us with only two cancelled sides of an equation and nothing remaining; it does still unpack some  meaning for us.

Consider for instance "He was quietly furious".

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Pabreetzio
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Re:Free will and the meaning of life
« Reply #16 on: 2005-05-10 00:09:21 »
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Add this to the list of things that come in two flavors of scinece vs religion. Free will lies in religion's corner, determinism is in sceince's corner. Unlike a lot of this church who in other cases would argue against the religious flavors, I dont think the fact that it is of the religious flavor is negative at all. even if we dont like a lot of other religious views on issues its ok to have religious views- we as humans want them, and they work well with us.

Some of you expressed your view that you hope youre not right about everything beind determined, that you want to have free will. Well you do have free will, as long as you look at it a certain way. However, if you look at everything inductively then youre going to reach the conclusion that even if you can not predict exactly what is going to happen, the fact remains that what you do is determined just as much as where the rock is going to land after you throw it is determined. The rocks course is more easily induced (infered), and it may be impossible for you to induce the actions of a person, but it is possible in theory for everything to be predicted through inductive logic. Inductively there is no free will. If you dedicate yourself to inductive reasoning only then its a fact you may unfortunately have to get used to (unfortunate because the deductive part of you does not like it).

Deductively however, in a world where there is a God who created man instead of the other way around, you do have free will. In fact God created you out of his own free will himself. And he created you in his image. and with your free will you can even choose to accept reality or not- and as lucifer was wanting- it becomes possible to fly (although the only person I know of with enough free will in order to make themselves fly is neo from the matrix- too bad he is fictional)(hey i could have used the example of Jesus from the Bible walking on water but i think the Matrix works better with this crowd) Of course neo is living in a matrix when he flies- the matrix is representitive of how our world is a constructed reality but not the true reality.

The fact is that we are not The One- we are not Jesus, and we are not prepared to live on purely deductive logic alone. I think both forms of logic are appropriate for different things, and its our job as a church to decide when which type of logic is appropriate. Surely we do not want to abandom the conception of free will. Nor do we want to resort to dogmatism.

Being "of Virus" we put ourselves on the side against neo- the symbol of free will. We are like agent smith, believing that humans are closest related to the virus, believing that we should replicate memes like a virus.
Being a "Church" we must also form our own conclusions after going through the inductive logic to create them- conclusions that make it easy to replicate our memes, spread our doctrine, and allow us to live better lives.
The name as a whole, "Church of Virus" is a testiment to how the two ways reinforce eachother.
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LenKen
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Re:Free will and the meaning of life
« Reply #17 on: 2005-12-04 03:36:57 »
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Quote:
Señor Blunderov wrote: I think it may have been GK Chesterton who remarked (something like); "paradox is truth standing on her head to attract attention."

And considering women tended to wear skirts back in GK Chesterton’s day, Ms. Truth was bound to attract more than a little attention by standing on her head.



Apropos of free will, I think we merely follow our strongest motivation.  What we do is simply the result of our genetic predispositions and our memetic acquisitions in conjunction with our current situation—our self responding to the current stimuli we face.  But I still think we should act as though we have free will (and that’s what we do instinctively anyway, so why stop now?).

I agree with the vast majority of what Daniel Dennett says in his book Freedom Evolves, but I disagree with his definition of free will.  I think we have a certain freedom that comes with self-determination—and I think that freedom is very real . . . I just don’t see any real reason to call that freedom free will.  I’m perfectly satisfied to simply see it as self-determination.
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David Lucifer
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Re:Free will and the meaning of life
« Reply #18 on: 2005-12-04 16:37:33 »
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Quote from: LenKen on 2005-12-04 03:36:57   

I agree with the vast majority of what Daniel Dennett says in his book Freedom Evolves, but I disagree with his definition of free will.  I think we have a certain freedom that comes with self-determination—and I think that freedom is very real . . . I just don’t see any real reason to call that freedom free will.  I’m perfectly satisfied to simply see it as self-determination.

But equating free will and self-determination provides valuable insights into the former. It is real progress to show that free will is nothing more than self-determination.
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Gods Imaginary ...
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Re:Free will and the meaning of life
« Reply #19 on: 2006-02-12 19:58:06 »
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I was watching one of my favourite movies last night, Ground Hog Day with Bill Murray. As I watched the movie I noticed an interesting subtext on the meaning of life. Clearly this subtext was never difficult to find and I had always been aware of it, however, in light of my recent belief in there being no *real* free will I found the movie more interesting than ever.

In this movie Bill Murray Repeats the exact same day, every day. That is, he wakes up on February second each morning with full memory of already living through the same day, February second. The interesting part is that no one else is aware of this phenomenon; they keep living each February second as though they never had before, repeating the exact same actions. This reminded me of a world in which there really is no free will, Bill Murray is completely aware of the predictability of each day.

Once Bill Murray is certain of this predictability he lives as if there is no tomorrow, excessively drinking and eating. He also uses his ability to know the exact order of things in the day to pick up women, rob banks and basically live it up.

He eventually finds this deeply depressing, his life is predictable and nothing he does has any permeance or impact on the world. He consequently tries to commit suicide many times over, each having no effect as he continues to wake up in his own personal time warp on February second. Bill Murray’s problem throughout this period is his deep cynicism and contempt for all the people living in such a predictable and meaningless existence. His selfless acts within an existence with no meaning or permeance do not bring him comfort, after all, what’s the point? I have felt this way in my weaker moments, as have many other Virians I'm sure. What is the point if there is no soul, and no free will given that everything is controlled by predictable physics and chemistry?

But towards the end of the movie Bill Murray begins to change his attitude and try to live the best life that he can. He helps as many people as possible, becomes entirely selfless and spends every moment he can learning more about the world and developing every skill within his reach. From these acts he earns the love and admiration of all those around him. Perhaps this offers a way of living life for a Virian, or anyone else. Ignore the predictability of life, use every waking minute to be the best person you can be and wherever possible be selfless and humble. This is what eventually removes the predictability and cynicism from Bill Murray’s life in the film.

Maybe Church of Ground Hog would give this movement increased memetic fitness, everyone loves that movie. Replace ‘Acolyte’ with Ned Ryason etc, though it might come across a *little* faddish 
« Last Edit: 2006-02-12 22:44:52 by Gods Imaginary Friend » Report to moderator   Logged
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