It implies that being is a function of consciousness. — Pop

And I told you how I think that sentence is to be interpreted. "therefor" is a formal conclusion.

It suggests that consciousness is the fundamental element of being from which everything else must be interpreted. — Pop

You have not said anything about what "being" shall mean in this context either. Descartes concludes
"I think => I am" which is called a material implication. So "being" must be given to "think". On the other hand "being" would be possible without thinking - as there is no equivalence relation.

I think, we have to start, as Descartes did, with; I think, therefore I am, and so the word is, and so on. — Pop

But that is an implication that does not bear any information about the nature of being. Maybe Descartes was only the hallucination of a higher entity. As far as we can tell he died at some time and hence stopped thinking and disappeared just as hallucinations do. I guess it is time to sleep now.

The problem then would be if it's changed its tune. — TheMadFool

Must be a different bird then.

A macabre choice to make but it'll do the trick...I guess. — TheMadFool

Question then would be how to get it back singing on demand.

What about ear plugs and closing one's eyes or blindfolds? — TheMadFool

Or just shooting the tweeting bird. Sounds like an idea!

There is a different quality to thinking than to perceiving. For example, one cannot decide to hear something or not, but can decide to think about something.

That "could be" is the key phrase. It brings into question the soundness of Descartes' argument. — TheMadFool

What I actually wanted to say is that you cannot easily exchange thought for awareness as it might change the argument. I did not read much of Descartes however.

My research, for what it's worth, shows that cogito ergo sum actually means: Thinking. Therefore I am. — TheMadFool

"Cogito" is the first person singular form of "cogitare".

Definition of aware (courtesy Google): having knowledge or perception of a situation or fact. In other words awareness consists of the actions knowing (verb) and perceiving (verb).

Also, what's the proof for the premise If in a state (awareness) then exists something that is in that state (the entity that's aware)? — TheMadFool

But where did the ego get introduced? Where is the step from "There is something." to "I am aware of something."
The nature of being could be self-fulfilling, self-sufficient.

I am not talking about bodily limitations, I am talking about the body's influence on will. An example might be discussing how getting aroused can influence a person's choices or how addiction can cause unbearable cravings. When we talk about different personalities, temperaments and so on or the effect of being tired, angry or hungry. The culmination of which is a mix between two effects, firstly that your will is a construct of your psychobiological self and secondly that the freedom of your will is compromised by numerous and potent influences affecting it. — Judaka

I do not see the point. At every time you can judge how much your doing actually reflects your will. If not then you simply do not know what you want, have no will and there is no need to dicuss anything.
It is no argument that you have to make concessions to feel well. Of course you do not really want the concession but what it achieves.
Simple example: A sadistic madman ask a mother which of their children he should kill. If she doesn't chose, all get killed. It does not mean she wants one of her children to die if she chooses one.

When you commit to something, that is you trying to exercise your will but when you later decide it's not worth it, I think that's also your will. — Judaka

I would say that none is, actually. You are trying to "decide" if coffee or tea pleases your taste. Such a thing cannot be known in advance. Drinking coffee or tea is not what you are trying to achieve either.

Certainly, people can make the choice to quit smoking and succeed but consider how many emotions and desires have been coded into us or become present as a result of our circumstances and how hard it can be to change these things. — Judaka

And how could you want to change something if you take your will as not being your will? Makes no sense. You are losing your head about how to do things but claim to not even have an idea about what you want to achieve. Happiness? Tea or coffee?

I think the body's influence on the will constitutes an outside influence, the question is how greatly can you be influenced before you are more of a puppet to those influences than an actor with free will. There should be a point where the individual acting in accordance with those influences to a degree where it is reasonable to doubt the ability of the individual to go against those influences. Also, I don't think perception can be trusted to bring clarity to this matter. — Judaka

The question remains if bodily limitations are perceived as such. This may be done in reflection. If you act in accordance with yourself there cannot be a question about if you are acting as freely as you can. The act is a direct expression of your will, then. The prohibitive laws questioning mental stability of certain subjects may be in place to protect them from theirselves but cannot be justified on the grounds of those subjects' will as they may explicitely be carried out against it.

Well, what you've described is not what I meant, the desire to smoke and the desire not to smoke both enter the consciousness and that's how that works. — Judaka

There is no "desire" not to smoke and cannot be as that is a negation. There may be a desire to smoke and a rational decision to stop smoking to feel more healthy or whatever.

The whole problem here is that merely characterising your will as "what I want" and "what I don't want" is not the same as "I don't want that" but you do, that's the whole difficulty of exercising your will. — Judaka

Which pretty much brings it to the point: "I don't want that" is not a rational end, hence never a direct maxime of free will. It serves another purpose.
Smoking a cigarette is not necessarily very harmful. Extrapolating in about potential consequences of doing it again and again would is an abstract form of free will - which is also hinted at by it's negative nature. The question you are asking then is not "Do I smoke this cigarette?" but "Do I want to smoke cigarettes again and again?" As an abstract question this gets an abstract answer - which may be "No, not in general, but this one." What would you want then? Not that difficult.
So much for "exercise": if you have got the feeling you cannot stop smoking go see a doctor.
We are not in the middle ages.

Merely going with all of your psychobiological proclivities isn't freedom, that's just being taken along for the ride without trying to resist. — Judaka

So
1. It is rooted in your nature
2. It is admitted by your reason
Now it gets very difficult to construct a problem, don't you think?

I was saying that you can decide you want something but the growing pressure to do the opposite builds up until you eventually or quite possibly almost immediately capitulate. — Judaka

Are you talking of power now? There may be external and internal resistances and your problem is you lack the power to execute your will. So what does the rational individual necessarily have to do? Go see a doctor, buy weapons or question your decision.

Like deciding you will do something bold until it comes time to do that thing and you're immediately overcome by fear which causes you to change your mind. — Judaka

Then either you are lacking power or your abstract reasoning is wrong in that you only whish you wanted to do it...

Thus your emotions influence your will — Judaka

If they really did there would not a problem. This is where the circle closes: You either want or do not. The rest is a question of power.

If your will is determined by conscious, emotional and rational influences, then your decisions are freely chosen. — Wayfarer

As far as emotional influences go: no. Not in general. Not if the emotion is not voluntarily admitted to.
Free will does not know any measure other than the intrinsic value of the matter it focuses on. It is you who makes a decision, not the emotion.

I propose it is that part of me which is my will that determines my wilful choices. — god must be atheist

I would call this on-point. (Individual) freedom is represented by willful act and will hence is free in a tautological self-defining way.

the human body is made to dictate appealing from unappealing regardless of your will in a way which influences your will and really, often simply constitutes your will. — Judaka

Which is not necessarily a contradiction at all, as long as such an influence is not perceived as such. One is as free as can be until there is something which is actively perceived as limiting ones freedom.

Firstly, this is expressed as both the individual wanting and not wanting to smoke, we cannot express their desire to smoke as not being part of their will. — Judaka

Of course, we can. The person gives a declaration of intent and that's it. One could even say that it is a demonstration of free will to be even able to want something different than what one is doing or what actually is the case.

My inability to cleanse my will of external influences poses the greatest threat to my free will, which is actually inherently not free at all by its very nature. — Judaka

Do you feel it that way? Then maybe you are just told it was your free decision..

I can easily decide to hold my arm out in front of me but it's much harder to hold it out until I stop due to physical limitations rather than "wanting to stop". — Judaka

Are you asking that you "want to want something" now? Such things are quite interesting. All the "perfect dystopias" like "1984", "Equilibrium", "The year 2525" and so on play with such problems: Perfection of rational freedom by total subjection of his own nature - you do have the choice then. If you cannot want what you want to want, then you are lacking (technological) means.

Realist objects, universals, formalism, or logic are in no way applicable to solipsism. — magritte

Especially logic.

For example, there are people who say "I have a right to say/think whatever I like." There is no law stating that a person may say or think whatever they like. There may be no law prohibiting them from doing so, of course. — Ciceronianus the White

Veeerrrryyy unlikely in general...

Natural rights are in some sense suspended by legal rights.

There is a sense of "right" that just means "freedom". These are sometimes called "liberty rights". — Pfhorrest

Enjoy them....

.....

Right and Freedom are directly opposed. A right is what limits others freedom. It is purely negative in nature. Modern people confuse it with freedom because of the rights they have against the souvereignity, which, by the very concept of souvereignity itself, would be absolute, total.
Your civil rights limit the state's freedom against you and other ppls rights limit your freedom. Your rights limit my freedom. Property rights do not grant freedom - they limit it. Nomads did not need a right to stop anywhere. Maybe they need it nowadays as all land is claimed by national states.

Consciousness tells me that I am, and context tells me what I am, but neither of them explains why I am. It would seem that the answer to that question will always be left to either the unknown, or faith, — Partinobodycular

Must have been your own choice.

If they gave specific plans anyone would be able to actually decide on a factual basis, following ones one interest - or one could not if matters were complicated. Wrt morals thats a lose-lose situation.

Should there be a line drawn between common (practical, particular) and academic (universal) philosophical thought? — kudos

I'd definitely say yes to this question. Being paid for philosophy means bought philosophy.

Why can't candidates be far more precise when stating their intentions? — TiredThinker

I guess that be to immoral to start with....

Hmm. And so ontology gets thrown out the window. I'd say fine, but then epistemology would have no ontological grounding. — javra

Pure ontology by it's very nature can only arrive at mere possibility.

We, in essence, become attached to the tales we tell ourselves that explain what and who we are. — javra

"Things as they are" aren' t much.

I don't know what you mean by "concluding necessity would be ok" — Gregory

The conclusion of a free, expressive act.

Hegel believed the human side of someone can be known by their body but not that specific structures necessarily indicate a certain temperament — Gregory

I have to admit I read him fragmentary and partially horribly wrong. But nobody would ever think of someone's immediate appearance (e.g. their height) as a choice or expresion.
I guess you are too admissive with your words: The "expession of the nature of free mind" is "human" only biologically.

He roughly says the bodily form is exactly what was wanted to express. An act of freedom which only in the reflection of mind in itself becomes a passive form.

while we humans often loose sight of this due to a sea of nebulous abstractions — javra

Sounds like Puddles Pitty Party - Could that be done on purpose? Seems much more plausible.

Can you elaborate on this? Would like to make sure that I understand you properly. — javra

When asking what is necessary for experience to be possible, the answer should not lead to the conclusion, that it is not.

Why defer to logical reasoning when it is just a figment of your imagination that can be waived off whenever it disagrees with your whims? — javra

The conclusion fails short. It signifies a level of thought where mind has not yet achieved self-conscousness as the being it is. On the other hand the personalizing pronoun tells otherwise and shows the regression that is taking place in that context. Why does everyone just think, that, when talking about a-priori there would be wisdom beyond the obvious.

"Any type of sensory input. ... — Darkneos

There you have it, right in the first sentence.

Input
noun: input; plural noun: inputs
1.
what is put in, taken in, or operated on by any process or system.
...

Read: something else. Not the "system" itself.

The phenomenology of solipsism is that this advocate contradicts himself in the first sentence. True Chewbacca - aren't we all Chewbacca?

Good post, javra.

We infer all the happenings of REM dreams to occur within our own personal mind, and this because these happenings are found to all be private to ourselves upon awakening from sleep: others do not share our REM dreams. — javra

Even in dreams the world you are in is not the subject of experience. It just does not make sense. It takes "something else", which, by its own terms, may not be, and declares it as "one self" while also staying "something else". The "sources" thingy is nonsense either: Here the wanna-be solipsist tries to double himself, but even then: When there is him - as experiencing subject - and him - as the fabricating source - there is again two things: An experiencing subject and the fabricating source. If that "him as" would cound as an argument, then we could proclaim Chewbaccaism as irrefutable: There is only Chewbacca as you and Chewbacca as others. Who would doubt that?

First there is the notion that all that exists is your mind. — Darkneos

Ask yourself who that "you" is in the sentence. It talks of "my mind" but my mind and my self - aren't those different things alltogether? So what does solipsism even mean? "All is mind" is idealism.

As those acts are reflected which makes sense when talking morals. Deducing potential would be false, concluding necessity would be okay.

He thinks the human is expressed in skull and face but that there is little you can deduce about character from them — Gregory

So you cannot conclude any intent or property from an expression? Interesting...

So again, how does it refute itself because so far the arguments don't seem so strong. You can intend X and not X by simply waving it away as a figment of your mind — Darkneos

Well, the "figment of your mind" is just as much you as whiskey is grains. There is something you do not perceive as yourself. So how would it make sense to say it is yourself then? You cannot say "This is me" and "This is not me" at the same time. And the logical extension "There is only me" becomes pretty ridiculous if you grab yourself a chair.

I heard it said that solipsism can't be refuted because it's logically impeccable, but does that make it true? — Darkneos

Solipsism refutes itself as even a solipsist would distinct between himself and others/things. This makes it unsound - if there was only himself he could not speak of other things: there would be nothing to experience.

I told you already. It's an observation. You disagree. So YOU tell me what you think it is. — khaled

I am just what wondering that Descartes got famous by stating something obvious. I didn't think that it was meant merely descriptive. Well, you learn...

Are you implying that if something is not explained by empricial science it is not an observation? — khaled

Hmm, as you are talking about ontics there is no difference at all.

Alternatively they could argue that were the female drug addicts to reproduce, the potential persons would have such a poor quality of life, that it would maximize happiness/well-being the most by permitting the female drug addicts to receive the $300 and guaranteeing that the potential persons do not come into existence. — Down The Rabbit Hole

But the utilitarian could also argue that her reproduction ensures that there are always enough people to look down on and hence raises the overall well-being as one hobo in the streets can make hundreds if not thousands of people more happy with their lives. Not necessarily only the natural feeling of superiority but also being able to prove one selves goodness and benevolence by throwing that superfluous 5 cents into the hat... So in general she could serve the political stability of many regimes as they need someone even for lower-class ppl, who yet serve their role as expandable gear in the maching, to kick down to.

You tell me! If it was an observation empirical science would not be the enemy, right?

Not very scientific of you to ignore the most fundamental observation that preceded all others — khaled

The critical point is, that it is not an observation.

Since determinism is in principle falsifiable, and any fortuitously constrained non-determinism is not, determinism is the scientific choice — Kenosha Kid

Weaving out a system of axioms is not falsifiable either but that is exactly what mathematicians do all day long. And maths is often called the only pure science.

The relativistic knowable universe encompasses X ly around the spectator. The next year it is X+1 ly. How would someone account for the things that have not yet appeared as causes?