What is wanting?

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PseuTonym said:
When are you without free will?
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To be honest I cannot know. I don’t know that decision I make is caused by something deep in my subconscious mind or it is a conscious decision. I cannot make the distinction. Can you?
 
STT said:
You don’t need free will to do good. You just need to be rational. Free will just open a door toward bad action.
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I doubt reason and free will could ever be separated. One without the other makes little sense.
 
fhansen said:
I doubt reason and free will could ever be separated. One without the other makes little sense.
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It make complete sense. You are rational being. This means that can prioritize a set of options from the best, better, bad and the worst. Which option do you pick up from this set of options? Of course the best. Why? Because you are a rational being. What free will allows us to do? To pick up the worst. That doesn’t make any sense.
 
STT said:
Think of a situation that you have two options which you can only choose one. Suppose that you study the situation well and realize that one option is good and another is bad. It seems rationally reasonable to choose good instead of bad but we know that we sometimes choose bad. There are two scenarios available here: (1) We have free will and (2) There is a underlying reason for choosing bad, curiosity or another deep reason that we are not consciously aware of it. In first case, it is interesting to note that there is no point in having free will whether we are created being or the result of evolution. It is just absurd. In the second case we are simply a machine and we are not consciously aware why we want bad. :confused:
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These outcomes:

a. freely choose good or bad
b. no choice - there is an unconscious cause for action (good or bad)
 
STT said:
It make complete sense. You are rational being. This means that can prioritize a set of options from the best, better, bad and the worst. Which option do you pick up from this set of options? Of course the best. Why? Because you are a rational being. What free will allows us to do? To pick up the worst. That doesn’t make any sense.
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I can’t prioritize and pick the best without both reason and free will.
 
fhansen said:
I can’t prioritize and pick the best without both reason and free will.
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You just need reason to prioritize options. You then pick up the best. Even a computer can do that. There is no need for free will.
 
Vico said:
These outcomes:

a. freely choose good or bad
b. no choice - there is an unconscious cause for action (good or bad)
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The point that I am trying to make is that you can always choose good if you are merely rational. Free will just allows you to do bad. So the question is what is the point of having free will?
 
STT said:
You just need reason to prioritize options. You then pick up the best. Even a computer can do that. There is no need for free will.
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So why would free will act against reason?
 
STT said:
It make complete sense. You are rational being. This means that can prioritize a set of options from the best, better, bad and the worst. Which option do you pick up from this set of options? Of course the best.
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How can you select the best option if you cannot predict the future?
 
STT said:
You just need reason to prioritize options. You then pick up the best. Even a computer can do that.
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Can you create world peace by making computers that tell people that the best option isn’t war?
 
STT said:
The point that I am trying to make is that you can always choose good if you are merely rational. Free will just allows you to do bad. So the question is what is the point of having free will?
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Free will allows bad but also the good. Because there is free will there is personal responsibility. Morally, this allows for both malice and charity.
 
Vico said:
Free will allows bad but also the good. Because there is free will there is personal responsibility. Morally, this allows for both malice and charity.
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You need to be rational to do good. Free will just allows you to do bad.
 
STT said:
The question is that why did God or evolution grant you such a ability? It doesn’t make any sense. That is why I am confused.
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Because to the extent that we choose the good-meaning to the extent that we love-we will know God-meaning we will know supreme, boundless happiness. I doubt evolution could’ve come up with that one BTW :). It’s really a beautiful idea-and a beautiful choice. We’re simply expected to do the right thing-and what could be wrong with that? The right thing from us-and the right thing for us, for our own good.
 
STT said:
You need to be rational to do good. Free will just allows you to do bad.
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That is like saying that good is the norm without free will, but there is the possibility of both good and bad acts without free will. Free will allows culpability.
 
STT said:
You need to be rational to do good. Free will just allows you to do bad.
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That made zero sense. You only rationalize when confronted with a problem that can have logic meaningfully applied. You then choose which logical outcome you wish to pursue - especially if there’s more than one outcome. Thus “free will” is present in both situations.

And I’m assuming that you’ve already been told “good” and “bad” are completely meaningless words outside of some objective moral authority that defines them.

This whole thing is a mess, respectfully. :confused:
 
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