It could (logically) be the case that you're determined to do x.

Any choice, always and in every situation? — Possibility

The idea is just that some choices are possible, contra the idea that none are.

Boy, that's a whole lot of criticism without much substance. Pot meet kettle. — Pantagruel

Well, because it's a complete mess. We'd have to tackle one small thing at a time.

if I consider the faculty of understanding which I possess, I find that it is of very small extent, — Pantagruel

And here you're making even more of a mess. To sort through all of this we'd have to tackle just very small bits at a time. For example, you find that it's "of a very small extent"? What the heck is that even saying?

dude you literally ignored the rest of my comment and focused on the first paragraph. F — khaled

Yes, because all of a sudden you started piling a bunch of stuff on again with a long post. Remember "This keeps getting longer and longer and I hate when that happens, so let's do one thing at a time. I do want to get to the rest, but I don't want posts to keep getting longer and have to keep addressing more and more issues."

We were doing well with that.

Is it ok to plant a bomb BEFORE a baby is born and setting it to explode after? There is no person to give consent at the time the specific action of planting the bomb is taking place. — khaled

I've said at least four or five times now that the problem isn't planting the bomb. It's the bomb going off.

First, note that I believe there is free will.

However:

If there is no such thing as free will, then everything is moot, most importantly, any discussion about it, which could not be taking place. — Pantagruel

"If there were no free will, then no discussion about free will could take place" is false.

Without the concept of free will there can be no responsibility for anything,

That's a common view, but I don't agree with it.

and consequently no meaning.

That's not a common view, and it seems completely arbitrary.

Free will and consciousness are synonymous.

What??? No.

Consciousness is the manifestation of free will.

Again, a completely arbitrary idea.

One of the most fundamental interpretations of life is self-direction,

That's a common value, but it's not an "interpretation of life."

Claiming that free will does not exist would be a self contradictory action,

No. That's just nonsense.

Postulating something is an event of free will.

No.

Your post is a complete mess of false, arbitrary nonsense.

If God willed "something" other than being, God would will no-thing. — Dfpolis

What makes this the case, God or something else?

But I do not see a compelling argument in anti-natalism that would convince people of this position. Surely, few (ZERO?) humans would ever be able to get past their own subjective, "well 'I' am glad that 'I' was born" or vice versa. — ZhouBoTong

Not only that but most people would ask just what suffering/harm the antinatalists are talking about, where they'd only accept specific examples as an answer. And if the answer turns out to be that someone didn't want to eat broccoli but was forced to, didn't want to go to school or church but was forced to, etc., the vast majority of people would say, "Give me a break" and see someone suggesting that as "suffering" that's still affecting them as indicative that they need counseling, because there's something wrong with them that isn't wrong with most people.

I don't see how it's not obvious with something like taste that (a) it's not the case that we're simply recording/reporting objective properties as if we're not also saying something about us, AND (b) it's not the case that we're simply reporting subjective properties that have nothing to do with objective stuff or where we can have no idea how they're connected to objective stuff/no idea what the subjective stuff is like.

Why wouldn't it be obvious to anyone that what things taste like to us is a combo of the two?

Seriously, it seems to me like people would have to basically be idiots to find this difficult to sort out.

The way I see it, the existence of free will essentially boils down to three assertions, — Possibility

The way I see it, it boils down to one assertion: I have and can make a choice.

Our world is a war-ridden world. War, is a state of lawlessness — a disregard to the law. — SethRy

The UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) would like a word with you.

No nonono. I was talking about the exruciating pain of humainty as it flies towards extinction be it due to heat death or more likely internal strife. — khaled

That sounds ridiculous though. You're not even talking about pain that anyone is experiencing?

Is removing someone's ability to walk painlessly, bad? I think we'd both say yes because that's a long lasting physical effect. — khaled

I'd only say yes because it's a specific action, done by an agent to someone normally capable (now, not in the future) of consenting, and they didn't consent to it. It's not morally bad with anything less than those requirements.

can experience pain and suffering and I do not know why you don't think the same way. — khaled

But apparently you're not even really talking about pain and suffering there, but you're talking about "the excruciating pain of humanity as it flies towards extinction"???

Somethings are internally contradictory or refuted by further evidence. — Andrew4Handel

Validity is relative to a logical system that we've adopted. For one, in traditional logic, any argument with contradictory premises is valid.

You might want to take a look at that sign in the middle; it's an equals sign. It means that energy and mass are equal, mediated by a number. There's an interesting video referenced above. I think you might like it. — tim wood

So you were thinking that I'm probably just not familiar with this?

tbh idk what I was thinking when I wrote that. — khaled

Okay, but just in general. I mean, Andrew is apparently an adult still whining about having to eat broccoli and go to school or whatever. Is that the sort of thing you mean?

Is taking away a capacity for x painlessly bad? So paralyzing someone painlessly without their consent? — khaled

If we're talking about an entity normally capable of consent and we're talking about performing a specific action on them that has long-lasting physical effects that they didn't consent to, sure. The pain part is irrelevant.

They force them to have the capacity for suffering which I think is just as big a crime as causing the suffering yourself. I don't know why you can't see this — khaled

Force is only an issue for specific actions. Not "forcing a capacity for x."

So what pain are you talking about anyway?

Because in this case you're not just delaying it you're relaying the pain to someone else. — khaled

What pain are you even talking about? Can you specify what you're talking about?

Also just out of curiosity. Can you think of any example where an action that produces COMPARABLE amounts of pain and suffering is FORCED onto someone who has absolutely no demand for either and where that is considered permissable? — khaled

Again, no one is forcing anything on anyone by conceiving or giving birth to them. I don't know why you can't learn this.

Yes because having children is only delaying the inevitable. There will be a "final generation" of humans who will have to suffer from not having enough people. Having children is simply taking that burnden and putting it on somoene else. People definitely benefit from other people, but eventually there will be a time where lack of people WILL become an issue. Having children is giving that suffering for the next generation to shoulder until the last one finally collapses. There is no point in it. — khaled

There are so many problems with this. First off, let's say that something is inevitable that people do not desire. The problem with delaying that is?

Just because I'd benefit or society would benefit form having a kid doesn't justify me risking forcing one to suffer for 80 years. — khaled

It's also a f**ked view that not only do you think that anyone is forcing anyone to "suffer" for 80 years, just the fact that you think that anyone is suffering for 80 years is f**ked.

No one benefits from you having children except you. — khaled

What a f**ked view of the world. No one benefits from other people in any way?

By the way, you don't unintentionally CAUSE someone to be run over by a car when you give birth, either.

No. Because the light desingers and manufacturers did not intentionally cause this harm. While giving birth to someone is very intentional and done with full knowledge it would cause them harm. — khaled

You don't intentionally cause the harm of someone getting run over by a car when you give birth.

You can be aware of the fact that that could happen, but traffic control signal designers, manufacturers, etc. are far more acutely aware of the fact that someone could get run over by a car by crossing a street.

Neither is intentionally causing the harm. The driver probably didn't intentionally cause the harm, either. It was probably an accident. It may have been negligent, and it may not have been.

Ok so if a child is run over by a car and loses all functionality in his leg. There are two causes for his loss of functionality. First of all, the car hit him (non consentually). Second, he was there. But why was he there in the first place? Because he was born (non consentually). So you can say part of the reason he was harmed was that he was born non consentually can we agree?

Or do you not consider enabling harm a factor at all? — khaled

Why, in your view, isn't part of the reason he was there the fact that the "WALK" sign was on to cross the intersection? So do you hold the traffic control light designers, manufacturers, etc. partially responsible?

Valid per some arbitrary system of logic?

(Well, or actually it might not be the person who planted it. It would depend on the exact scenario, actually, but we can simplify.)

So if the bomb goes off non consentually who is at fault? The person that planted it right? — khaled

Yes. And it has to be nonconsensually. That means that we need an agent normally capable of consent. Otherwise consent isn't an issue. Something can't happen nonconsensually to an entity not capable of consenting.

Planting bombs is not a moral matter. Having them go off nonconsensually is.

You could make the whole world out of a bomb. If it doesn't go off, who would care? People care because they go off.

When a person walks into a situation that brings them ANY harm — khaled

No. Not "any harm." That's way too vague. It has to be an action with particular physical effects, performed upon or with them in conjunction with other agents. It can't be just observational, or something no involving agents, etc. And it can't be someone who "will be" but currently isn't capable of consent.

What if it was. What if someone set a bomb to exlode BEFORE a certain baby was born and set it to explode AFTER he was born. — khaled

That's irrelevant. The issue is that when the person walks into the location where the bomb goes off, they're an agent normally capable of granting or withholding consent. Thus at that point, they either consent or not to being bombed.

Again, folks are not getting the idea of us needing to refer to specific/particular actions, by specific/particular agents who are capable of granting or withholding consent.

This would be a big tangent, but I'm curious: I don't know if you had any kids, or if you plan on having any, but didn't or wouldn't you educate your kids, either by sending them to school or by home-schooling them, even if your kid would rather watch cartoons all day or whatever?

QM describes quarks as fast-moving points of energy - — Possibility

Energy sans something to have energy is incoherent. And there are no real "points."

I disagree with your characterization of consent. If you do not rape someone then you are refraining from an action because you respect someones consent. Refraining from actions not doing actions is the main way that consent is respected. — Andrew4Handel

None of that disagrees with anything I've said, though.

I gave my own experiences of being forced to go to church and school also I was forced to eat what my mother chose for me — Andrew4Handel

So in those cases, if we're counting young children as agents that are capable of and need to grant or withhold consent for everything they're eating, for whether they go to school, etc., the person violating your consent would be whoever forced you to eat a particular food on a particular occasion, whoever forced you to go to school on a particular day, etc. Consent is relevant to a particular instance, a particular action, involving particular agents.

The same with khaled, all their arguments can be subsumed in the one I just gave. It can be characterized in a way that still takes your objection into consideration, and as stated earlier, makes a powerful argument with that objection at the core of its logic. — schopenhauer1

I couldn't care less about any antinatalist arguments. I am interested in the consent issue, especially since people really don't seem to understand consent very well, and they're conflating all sorts of things.

Okay, but what would that have to do with anything I'm talking about?

The consent issue only arises in humans because of our unique cognitive capacities. I don't know what other animals would think about procreating if they could reflect and reason like us. — Andrew4Handel

I hope that's not a response to me asking you to give an example of a specific action you have in mind.

I think he means that other people have different considerations and evaluations of life. — schopenhauer1

Who? Andrew? khaled?

And if they're talking about that--"other people have different considerations and evaluations of life," then they're not talking about anything that I've been talking about. Do they not understand what I'm talking about?

Having a child is not letting someone in. — Andrew4Handel

Consent is for specific actions.

Give an example of a specific action you have in mind.

I think other peoples reasons can be considered false. I don't think reason is subjective. This is why I differentiate between belief and knowledge. — Andrew4Handel

There's no way to make what's a "good" reason non-subjective.

"Good" is necessarily subjective.

Matter is comprised of interaction: particles in dynamic relationship with each other. As tim wood‘s video showed, what we see as matter, mass, is mostly the energy of these relationships, and only a very small percentage is the particles themselves.

So, the way I see it, interaction is at the heart of all matter, more so than the elementary particles. What we know as matter, therefore, is the extension of this interaction.

Does that make more sense or less? — Possibility

You can't just focus on the relations or interactions, because there needs to be something relating or having interactions.

Having a child is acting to impose experiences on someone else. — Andrew4Handel

The person who lets someone into a concert hall isn't responsible for anything other than letting them into the concert hall. They're not responsible for the concert experience, for a drunk guy puking on the person, for a bomb that was planted in the hall going off, etc.

Consent is for specific actions. And it needs to be granted or withheld to the specific, pertinent actors.

any thing happening to them — Andrew4Handel

Not "anything happening to them." It has to be an action upon them by another agent, or performed by them in conjunction with another agent.