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    posted a message on Free Will is an Illusion
    Can you eat a lemon if you want to eat a lemon? Sure. Can you kill someone if you want to kill someone? Sure. Can you Google "tits" with Safesearch off? Sure. Will you go to jail if you try to grope a 12 year old? Yes you will. You have free will. You can do whatever you want, but nothing is without consequence. You can get a bit more philosophical and pedantic, arguing that we are slaves of our own genetics and upbringing, but I don't think it's reasonable to do so. I'll try and break down your original post, regardless of the fact that I think it's just scrutiny of the available facts.

    "1. Physical matter of decent size is ruled by physics, and controlled by cause and effect. Things only change because something is exerting force upon them."

    One can argue that the concept of entropy and enthalpy isn't necessarily rules by physics, per se. A room left on its own without the influence of outside facts will deteriorate and havoc will reign due to the concept of entropy. Nothing is exerted upon it, and no physical factor is affecting it. It's a deep concept, but I'll leave it at that.

    "2. The human brain is the location of where thoughts occur, in the form of electrical signals. (and if this is not the case, that there is no outside-the-world influence on human thoughts.)"

    You can't classify thoughts as "electrical signals", when the process of thought, memory, dreams...etc. is not yet properly and adequately explained and quantified by science and scientifically controlled experiments. There is no scientific model, where, a human is born without prior influence exerted by parent genetics and inherited traits, left in a vacuum where no external stimuli and conditions affect it, and is monitored by a team of scientists in order to deduce data of how morals, thoughts, actions, and general character are developed without the outside effect of anything, be it humans or otherwise. It's a deep pool, and it can't be explored properly without one stepping over moral red line and dogmas.

    "This means that the electrical signals shooting through my brain can only go through a certain pattern; I cannot will them in one direction or another.
    That all humans boil down to being computers (computers with terrible data loss and file corruption problems) reacting to the environment.
    "

    If they can only go through a certain pattern, then one can argue that human behavior can be predicted, quantified, and categorized. Every human thought will therefore become part of a set of human thoughts possible through the recombination of "parent thoughts", modulated by psyche/personality/...etc. If you want to continue with the "humans are computers" metaphor, I assure you that the brain is indeed a supercomputer of sorts, with unlimited storage space, and unlimited capacity for renewal and processing. There is data loss because the person himself lost the data, where said data wouldn't be lost if proper memory tactics and repetition was employed in every single thing done by the person. There is "file corruption problems" when the brain is defective, say with psychosis, which affects 1% of the population, leaving the other 99% unaffected, debunking your claim.

    "It would also mean that our self awareness is a bit silly; we are aware that we are alive, but the decisions we make, every thought we think, is on autopilot.
    Making us like the diver in the mousetrap game, knowing we are about to dive, even thinking we are the ones choosing to do so, when in reality we are just part of a large Rube Goldberg machine
    "

    Did you choose the red pill, or something?

    "All creativity would be akin to all randomness in the physical universe: nothing is truly random, the only reason why you think a dice roll is random is because you do not know all the physics involved, if you did, you would know why it landed on the number that it did (how Data cheats at craps on the holodeck)."

    Given enough space and time, everything is possible, including that which is impossible. It's "random" because calculating the physics behind it would be near impossible, taking into account all the variables, which is why people settle with calling it random, rather than calculating everything, which I believe would take years of trial and error to correctly conclude the result of one dice roll. Good luck with that.

    In conclusion, I really just think that you're overscrutinizing and overthinking that which, in itself, is excessivly simple and straightforward.
    Posted in: Off-Topic
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