If we had total free will, it would invalidate all scientific knowledge about human behavior since there would be nothing fixed in our behavior.

It depends on your personal definition of "total free will". What most subscribers to Free Will that I know believe is that humans can actually make conscious choices, exactly as we appreciate subjectively, that is: human decision making is not an illusion.

I'd say that if we have free will, it's very limited. Otherwise it would be an insult to those low-functioning autists and anorexics. It would mean that an anorexic could wake up one day, make a U-turn and say "I'm going to eat as much as I need from now on." Or that a low-functioning autist could suddenly snap out of their autistic personality and become normal. But those things aren't happening. So if free will exists, it must be very limited.

Everyone agrees that various factors (say, being an autist) INFLUENCES decision making, sometimes drastically. However, abandoning Free Will says that there are no TRUE decisions for anyone. That is, if humans create a big enough supercomputer and feed it enough data all of what we call 'decisions' could be successfully predicted into infinity.

What is wrong with having a religious ideology? Has some law been broken here?

The answer is the same as what's wrong with spending money on concert tickets? Someone who is not a fan of the artist concludes the concert goer has nothing but some positive feelings/memories after the concert is over, ie it doesn't "buy" anything (of value). Whereas another could make the observation that it buys an albeit temporary positive emotional state.

Ok, what do you mean by "God"?

Or which god? Even if there is a god, there's less than one half of one tenth of one percent that it is the god that an individual believes in, historically speaking.

If honest is an adj, is it like tall and short, something we are largely born with, or is it like rich, something we can gain and lose?

It is a behavior profile that typically flows from one's psychological outlook. Thus CAN definitely change (along with one's psychology) though most don't change much.

In my experience the mindset most conducive to honesty is self confidence, since lying is frequently deployed to cover for the psychological inability to acknowledge personal shortcomings.

Thus the soul in your context, disappears when we die, right?

Don't be shy, what do you think?

Psychopaths, at least, are often described as 'soul-less' for the total inability to empathize.

I can live with your description if you can live with a "soul" being a reflection of one's behavior/outlook (as opposed to an innate entity that all humans possess).

I could see how that could be allegorically stated. :up: Still, technically, I will argue that sociopaths too want to be good at what they do, and so are in their own way innately attracted to the good, even though their conception of it might be easily considered perverse

I don't disagree, though you're saying that "good" is subjective thus essentially anyone's chosen behavior can be labeled "good" if you equate intentionality with seeking to do "good".

In order to define what is "fake", by definition one must define what is "real". As your counterfeiting example demonstrates, many, if not most common philosophical examples are of an inter-subjective, not objective nature. Thus in those circumstances perspective is critical because we are addressing opinions, not objective facts.

So... sociopaths have no soul?

If all the cells in our bodies, in organisms generally, contain a unique DNA sequence that defines them then that is different than the 'ship of Theseus'. It is also a matter of metabolism. Look up 'self-organization' and you will see why it does not apply to ships or to anything other than organisms..

Well you're right that personal identity of say, humans is fundamentally different from the 'ship of Theseus'. But the difference isn't because of DNA, it's because citizens exist both objectively (our bodies) and inter-subjectively (our identities), whereas archeological finds, such as ships, only exist objectively.

The turnover of cells (and thus molecules) of a human's body change our objective existance. However most layperson conversations about who we are do not use objective existance as the defining criteria. Commonly we use our inter-subjective existance (that is our existance as agreed upon by say, our community) as what we mean in conversation. Thus I am: my name, my family position, my profession, my reputation, my history. To myself, I am my memories and my beliefs and outlook. None of these is primarily defined by cells nor molecules.

OTOH a physical ship can slowly devolve from being 97% intact (or authentic) through lower and lower numbers until it hits zero and becomes a reproduction and no longer the ship of Theseus.

It's humorous observing the rewriting of such recent history now that the pandemic has been over for a year and a half.

That is, if an evil band of murderers exposes your peace loving society to death, oppression, subrogation and the like, and you have the ability to stop it, you must, even should it means devastation to the peaceful members of the murderous invaders.

While everyone agrees with your premise as written, it underscores a different issue, namely that a leadership structure when faced with external threats to their power, rally their constituants by posing the threat in exactly the overly simplistic terms that you used. "Evil band of murderers" indeed.

As they say, the first casualty of war is truth.

To be clear, I'm not criticizing the practice since telling simple folk what they want to hear is an extremely effective strategy.

Again, usually very true, but I'm not addressing the details of success (vs failure), rather that of crazy over the top success (vs plain ol success).

No I meant that say, Steve Jobs was a bright, driven individual with access to higher education (which makes him distinctly not average), but was in the right place at the right time, thus in his absence a different bright, driven individual (of which there are many) would likely have been lucky enough to have been as successful as he was.

"I feel incredibly lucky to be at exactly the right place in Silicon Valley, at exactly the right time, historically, where this invention (computers) has taken form." Steve Jobs 1995

Absolutely. Human ability tends to be on a roughly normal distribution. Wealth tends to follow a power law distribution. Compound returns on capital and the general existence of positive feedback cycles that make the poor poorer and the rich richer inflate small differences into large ones.

Very true, but not quite the topic I addressed. Outlier-level success is neither evenly distributed in the population, nor the purview of the previously rich and famous. Rather it is evenly distributed (since it is ultimately decided by luck) BUT within the (not small) group that has attained excellence (which is slanted towards the advantaged).

Most, including myself, learn different things differently. If it is a physical thing like a tennis stroke, I learn best by viewing an expert demonstration. If it is a process like building shed, by knowing what the options are, then deriving the best process based on personal experience. If it is a set of factoids, by experiencing them in multiple senses, hearing them spoken, watching the lecturer, writing (not typing) them down in a paper notebook, reading my notes.

I am concerned education for technology is not doing enough to nurture the student's character development, relying too much on technological knowledge but minus the important human factors.

Yes, there has to be a reason that the US trails the rest of the world in educational excellence (by a significant amount) yet leads the world in profitable patents, copyrights and inventions/corporations.

It is a common misunderstanding that those who become outlier-level, extremely influencial or successful are also outlier-level "better" or "smarter" than everyone else. The reality is that while these folks indeed work harder than most, are more intelligent, diligent, driven than most etc, there are large numbers who are also at that level, but what makes these household names over-the-top successful is essentially luck. Thus if by some stroke they would not have existed, someone else (typically unknown to most) would have stepped into that void and history would have progressed in a similar fashion.

As usual it depends on perspective. "Mad geniuses" accomplish great things that benefit the human race, however commonly their obsession impacts them negatively (often quite negatively) from their personal perspective. Thus using your example, if I'm advising my dear friend Isaac Newton who is considered to have died a virgin, exhibited bizarre behavior in his elder years due to mercury poisoning from his alchemical "research", lost his fortune having put a huge percentage of his wealth in the South Sea company before it crashed and had to live out his years in his niece's home, I would have advised him to develop relationship skills, moderate his alchemical pursuits and financial investments.

An excellent demonstration of the concept of the value of moderation in all things. Life isn't a single variable which should be maximized. As folks like to say: life's complicated. There are numerous variables that have importance at various times in various situations and circumstances. We all get to prioritize them differently. We look back from a wiser future and feel good about some of our decisions and regret others that we would do differently with our (new) wisdom. But having some regrets is okay too.

Overly simplistic philosophies that (over) emphasize single viewpoints ultimately leave me cold as too impractical.

Exactly. The OP is an excellent example of the importance of perspective. From a human philosopher's perspective the OP's declarations make some sense. From the perspective of the Universe itself for 99.99997% of the last 13.7 billion years it makes no sense whatsoever.

Reminds me of musings we had at 0300 in the morning in residency: "soap should be given away free and Birth Control should be in the water supply and you have to get a prescription for the antidote".

Approaching this logically, yet impractically, kitchen knives hurt their owners >90% of the time, yet adults with serious problems due to toxic childhoods generally harm folks other than their parents >90% of the time.

I am in complete agreement with you that Free Will, as a label is a total disaster. I wish the concept could have a different one, say "Bob" for instance.

Basically, I don't deal in labels, I think of concepts. Unfortunately when communicating with others, we generally use labels, and the miscommunication flows from there.

Here's a concept: does antecedent state X always lead to resultant state A or can antecedent state X lead to resultant state A or B or C? People I commonly converse with call the first scenario Determinism. I don't really care what someone calls it. Some call the second scenario Free Will others call it Indeterminism, again I am less interested in labels.

No one has a problem-free reality. Similarly no one has a lock on tragedy, everyone has had to deal with something. I never used the word "easily", reality isn't easy, that's my whole point. Reality is what it is. And yes, having problems is "average" and "normal". Not having any problems is a fantasy.

Oh I agree with you that in reality our inability to predict the resultant state in the case of decision making doesn't tell us anything about the validity of Determinism nor Free Will.

I was only saying that if we somehow could (I know we currently can't), it would prove Determinism and disprove Free Will.

LuckyR who is attacking me and why ? Seriously what are you talking about are people looking to eat me if I show to little or to much emotion

I stipulated "in competitive environments". That's the arena I'm speaking about. If you don't compete against others, then my commentary doesn't apply.

There are those who try to live like robots without Emotions which really doesn't make much sense because weather we like it or not we as humans have profound emotions and should not deny them. But still I would love to hear the criticisms of emotionalism even though I probably already know what they are. I think that acting on Emotions is what emotionalism is.

Don't confuse not showing emotions externally with not possessing or using emotions (internally). In competitive environments, generally speaking showing emotions can distract oneself and definitely is seen as a weakness by one's competition, making one a target for their attacks.

In general, having an icy exterior signals to others mental strength, resolve and grit, thus those looking for easy prey look elsewhere. However, intelligently using naturally occurring emotional energy and channeling it in useful ways is a competitive advantage, just don't let them catch you doing it.

Alas no one knows at the granular level how exactly human decision making happens. We do know that if someone could take detailed knowledge of the antecedent state and correctly predict the resultant state (the decision) 100% of the time, most, including myself would take that as proof of Determinism and a refutation of the concept of Free Will.

We also know that knowledge of the antecedent state allows prediction of decision making better than random chance but nowhere near 100% accuracy. Thus the antecedent state clearly Influences decision making, just it isn't proven that it Determines it.

Now, everyone has experienced the process of pondering a choice. Determinism proclaims that while the process of pondering is real, that one can actually choose either vanilla or chocolate is an illusion. In other words our subjective feeling that we can choose is false. All Free Will is claiming is that our subjective feeling of choice is correct, that you really could have chosen vanilla or chocolate.

It doesn't require disintegration of the Universe. That's just hyperbole.

The freedom implied by the word "Free" in Free Will doesn't mean free from influence, it means free from following inevitably from the antecedent state.

That's the thing with fighting strawmen, you always win. No one I know who believes in Free Will (as well as serious Determinists) supposes that the concept applies to anything more than decision making, ie they agree that physical systems are Determined.

As to talking to Santa (and gods) since they both exist inter-subjectively (not objectively) we can speak to them but they don't answer back.

Reality is distressing for those who expect fantasy. For those familiar with reality, reality is "normal", "average" and/or expected. Get a grip.

Firstly, anything not impossible is possible in my understanding. What is your understanding?

You're asking me to demonstrate that Free Will is possible, which implies you believe it is impossible. Since there is a robust Determinism vs Free Will debate here and elsewhere that long predated your (and my) existance on this planet and likely will continue long after we're both gone, the general consensus is that Free Will is possible, therefore you're actually in the position of having to demonstrate your outlier position.

Santa Claus (as well as gods) definitely exist. I don't know if that satifies either of them being possible in your way of thinking.

Well the biggest risk (by far) of firearms is making suicide attempts more likely to be lethal. Thus if there is someone in your household who is at any risk of a suicide attempt, don't have a firearm in your home. If noone in the household attempts to take their life although accidents and homicide are statistical possibilities, they aren't dramatic and in my opinion don't warrant not buying a firearm if you want to target shoot, hunt or protect your home.

But if the antecedent state did not cause the resultant state, that's not Determinism.

I agree that fewer guns = fewer murders. And if someone pondering the purchase of a home defense weapon could by declining would substantively reduce the amount of guns in their community by their declining, your observation would be relevant.

If one option was going back in time when US gun numbers were much less and capping at that number, I wouldn't have a problem with that. If making AR15s never having been sold was a time travel option, I'd be for that.

Alas, the real question is where to go from the actual current state.

Pray tell, in which possibility is Free Will not possible? BTW if you're going to throw out conclusions, you're sort of obligated to back them up (oh and your citation doesn't address Free Will).

I don't get how your mind works. "Not disproven" doesn't mean: "proven", it means: "possible".