how many decisions do you make that are actually conscious ? — Fumani

None. You can decide but ultimately can never know how you decide. There is a deeper level of unconscious decision making that suggests itself. This motivation is the essence of the determined self.
You can do as you will, but you cannot will as you will.
Free will is nothing more than freedom from outside coercion. The will is not free of itself, but determined by antecedent causes.

There are a series of variants to this problem.
One is the option of physically throwing a fat guy onto the tracks to save ten people.

Turns out that when you have to get up close and personal people are more reluctant to obey their utilitarianist ideals.

Consequentialism Is more to do with "the end justifies the means". No one here is saying that.

This has more to do with fate, against determinism. It's a text against the idea of "luck". From the farmer's point of view, all the things that happen are of of his influence and so nothing he has done has anything to do with them.
Those remarking on these happening as assuming by their comments that 'fate' has had a hand in the fortunes of the farmer; that there is some sort of karmic balance which favours or disadvantages the farmer, accordingly. The farmer knows better. He knows that things will unfold regardless of his needs or interests.

Join a party; get involved; run for party offices; become a delegate at conference; run for democratic office.
Depending on the country you live and the party you choose will determine whether any of this makes any difference.

It would be impossible.

Gay bars do not have a straight-bar. Just as Straight bars do not have a gay-bar.
This means that you can have people of all sorts in all sorts of bars.
If a straight man finds himself in a gay bar then he might be more likely to attract the interests of gay men, but this does not imply harassment.
Where I live gay bars are ubiquitous and they tend to be the most civilised. I've never found any man's attention to be harassment, but on the rare occasions I've attended a gay bar I've found that gays just know you are straight, and leave you alone.
Out men tend to predict high for intelligence. Stupid gays are too stupid to come out, and pretend to be one of the boys. It takes courage, personal awareness and good reasoning to come out; or to live a gay life discretely.

This has nothing to do with consequentialism.
The Farmer is not damning anything. No one is justifying an action because of its consequences.

I am not inclined to use Stanford because I generally dislike the narrow minded physicalist perspective which they put forward. — Metaphysician Undercover

Risible.

I see no reason to accept that.

Memories are not inherited.
Did you mean to say they are, or were you being careless in what you typed?

Do you have a point?

285. If someone is looking for something and perhaps roots around in a certain place, he shows that he believes that what he is looking for is there.

Not especially relevant to to I was saying I think.
Such a person could vocalise what he believes to be there.

Why is that relevant?
And in what way, exactly?

We are each have different skills and capabilities as we have evolved differently (different inherited or inborn traits) which is to say we have different memories — Rich

No that is not to say we have different memories at all. Humans more than any other animals are blank slates. We have NO memories of any kind, except those we make during our development, first as a foetus, and as a growing person. Traits are potentialities, and basic structures, they do not give us innate memories in any sense.
Each gamete has to start from scratch molecule by molecule.

I don't know. That is up to the one claiming that there is an objective morality to demonstrate.

Just because many/majority people have agreed that it is morally wrong to kill, the only objective statement about that is that it is objectively true that many/majority of people believe that it is objectively wrong to kill. That isn't a demonstration that it actually is objectively morally wrong to kill. — SonJnana

Objective either means true regardless of opinion;
True whether or not any one even knows it is true;
Or just some stuff that the establishment tells you is true.

What's it gonna be?

↪charleton When one says beliefs are concepts, it sounds like some explanation has been offered.

But has it? Do you have a better notion of what a concept is that of what a belief is?

I don't think we do. Concepts are just more things-in-the-head. — Banno

If you cannot express a belief as a concept then you don't have a belief.
How could you have a belief you cannot conceive of, let alone express?
I have a Wittgenstein quote bubbling up...
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.

I call any of their feelings "beliefs" seems absurd.
— charleton

Are you saying they do not have beliefs? — Banno

Why don't you ask them?

This is false, there is no legal definition of "free will", it is a philosophical term. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do some research.
Read up on Stanford. They explain the origin of compatibilism.

Saying "I believe one and one is two" is a reasonable statement because we all have overwhelming evidence that it is true, yet we do not truly know for certain that it is. — JustSomeGuy

No, this is definitively true.

And that's fine, but when discussing these concepts in a philosophical context, we need to be explicit about the necessity of belief in the true sense of the word. — JustSomeGuy

Exactly why I almost never use the word belief. It is too vague.

is it even possible to lack belief in any issue that you are aware of? Of course if you aren't aware of something you won't hold a belief about it, but if you have knowledge or experience with a certain issue, surely you hold a belief about it. — JustSomeGuy

Given the vagueness of the definition of belief I do not see how you question can warrant a response.

Do you choose not to believe in god? Of course not, because if you did you could choose to believe in god. It's actually very similar to the homosexuality issue. — JustSomeGuy

You may not choose to believe in God; though many do. But one thing is for sure you can choose to reject that belief.
Most people's experience is that as a child they were told what to believe. As one grows older many keep on with that like an old coat, but growing-up ought to be a process of replacing the childish mantle of belief and seeking to know about the world. Sapere Aude.

Choice determined or free is still a choice. I urge people to have the audacity to think and to change their minds.

So there you have it. Darwin knew that his theory is as incompatible with determinism as is free will. — tom

What utter nonsense!! You have made a tragic error of the most basic type; a complete glaring non sequitur.

It only takes one exception to confound the idea that pretends to be morally objective.
It has mostly been held to be morally acceptable to kill another human. And in the majority of cultures throughout the world, even today, that is still true.
There are instances where it is thought bad, but it all depends. And the dependant factors are culturally subjective and take into account, race, nation, gender, age, health and a range of circumstances related to the killer and the killed.

1. they discovered/have knowledge about an objective morality where it is objectively wrong to kill — SonJnana

Obviously this alternative is rubbish. How would you even make that 'discovery'?

Also , obviously the case of the flatness of the earth is a matter of fact and not a matter of opinion. Whilst all moral statements are matters of value.

There's something about beliefs arising non-linguisticaly that resembles beetles in boxes — Banno

I think a belief is conceptual and concepts are understood linguistically. Without the words there are no beliefs, there are actions, reactions and feelings - there are even motivations, but I think you have to stretch "belief" to extreme definitions to assert they exist non conceptually.

I say this as I watch chimps on the TV, refugees from the laboratory system, meeting for the first time and making friends. I call any of their feelings "beliefs" seems absurd.
There are no words - but there is plenty of communication going on.

As I said Darwin wrote about this. He admitted his theory requires chance as an ontological ultimate. — tom

Oh yeah!! Where it that? "Ontological Ultimate" is not an expression uttered by Darwin. SO who are you kidding?

Chance is a deterministic proposition; pure randomness is not.

It could even be seen as an evolutionary adaptation of the brain. — JustSomeGuy

I think this is a cop-out for lazy people who find it hard to think and would rather find the easy way out of using their brain but want some excuse.
If we are hardwired for god, then surely there could be no atheists at all?

But this actually makes me wonder something else: when it comes belief, can you really just lack it? No belief one way or the other? — JustSomeGuy

I think you will agree that many people hold beliefs for many different reasons, some for no real reason at all except that they have been told as a child that such and such is the case?
The word belief comes in for a range of meanings rendering it utterly useless since it is also perfectly reasonable to use say "I believe one and one is two".
I find it helpful to deny that I believe anything. So far this has not meant I've had any problems with people understanding my position. I only use 'belief' for matters that I am not sure about; I use "know" for things I feel happy enough to argue a case for. But hold all knowledge to be contingent on the evidence and reasons that support it.
I also hold 'aspirations'. Things like "I believe in equality", is not like I know people are free but I aspire to a future where the law is even handed and people feel they are treated equally.
Throwing belief out of my personal lexicon have been very useful since it had made me think more carefully about things I hold to be true, and to identify things that are speculative.

I recommend this to anyone willing to listen.

The case for the incompatibility of determinism with evolution is actually much easier to make. Determinism really means there are no chance events. Evolution requires chance to exist as a ontological ultimate. — tom

I really think you are clueless here.
Determinism just means that for each effect there are causes. True there is no such thing as chance in an absolute sense. But that does not in any sense invalidate evolution. Chance in a deterministic world just means we've not enough information to predict all outcomes in a complicated world.
There is no problem here.
A dice is not random; its landing is determined by the throw, and other causal factors, that are not easy to measure.

"The “a-” in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as “not” instead of “without”. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods)." — JustSomeGuy

Not exactly. As "theism" is a belief, then the "a-" prefix only means to indicate an absence of that belief, not a positive negation, but an absence.
Apolitical is not a person who rejects politics, it indicates something without a political content. Amoral similarly indicates something without a moral content and is not the same as IMMORAL.
Think it over!

I do not have any kind of belief that god exists and I know why I think that way.
That makes me an atheist for NOT having a belief.
The problem with Theism is that it allows belief to have the same status as knowledge. That's not adequate and I resent being told I have "a belief that god does not exist", which is absurd and assumes that God is some sort of meaningful category. What the fuck is god anyway?

Theist: I believe God exists.
Atheist: I believe God does not exist.
Agnostic: I neither believe God exists nor that God does not exist — darthbarracuda

NOPE.

Theist: I believe God exists.
Atheist: I do not believe in God. I may believe in something but god is not part of that.
Agnostic: I'm an atheist who doesn't know why. Or I'm a theist who is stupid as I don't even know why I'm accept this belief.

Okay what about this.
I often read late at night in bed. Sometimes what I read sends my mind off in a different direction and though I do not stop reading, I am thinking about something completely different within a few seconds. I can cover two or three pages reading away happily yet not taking in what I am reading.
When I swipe back I can find the exact place where I seemed to have left the narrative, and when I re-read the same couple of pages, it can seem familiar but I'm not consciously aware of having taken in the contents.
Anyone have this experience?

Anyway, an amusing corollary is that the theory of Evolution is false, and that we were indeed created. — tom

How does this correlate?

I have no reason to trust the people who manage Bitcoin and neither can anyone else.
One thing for sure, these people are unimaginably rich in real money, not just BC.
Millions of people will lose lots of money and the people who manage BC are going to be the ones who rake it in.

Occasionalism, which holds that there is no causal relationship between the two substances, physical and mental
Idealism, which holds there is no physical brain at all, and the only substance that exists is mental.

Both are compatible with the observation that bumping someone on the head makes them lose consciousness. — darthbarracuda

1) There is no account from 'occasionalism' which can account for a knock out
2) Idealism is not the caricature you want it to be. Idealism simply gives priority to ideas. It does not deny the existence of a brain. There is no reason that Idealism is incompatible with a knockout
3) Realism is the one you forgot to mention. Were I to caricature it as you did idealism then we would have to say that it has no account of consciousness - but this is also false.
4) Materialism has the best account of a knockout.

You are driving while unconscious? Ok. — Rich

This is an interesting question. I've often found myself arrive at a destination with a fully fledged plan, devised whilst on the journey, of who to meet, what to say, or what to buy, shops to visits etc... With not a single conscious memory of the journey I just made; that is to say - not in any detail, never consciously choosing a gear, never thinking about how much brake to use, or whether I chose to take the racing line across the roundabouts.

What a cunt.
Black wanna be.

All that this indicates is that the compatibilist rejects the traditional understanding of "free will — Metaphysician Undercover

No, there is not one single definition of free will.
Since we are want to employ the idea of free will commonly, the Compatibilist simply says what free will REALLY is, and from a deterministic perspective. Free will in normal parlance simply means not coerced, and that is a legal definition.

Philosophers do not own the language. If you were asked in court whether or not you freely made a choice, as a determinist you are able to say yes without obfuscation. Try and tell a judge that all acts are deterministic and therefor I was not free to chose not to steal the car!!!

if you awake to find yourself a high quadriplegic, — Banno

If you are lucky enough to live in a society that can afford to provide you dignity.

You have proved nothing.
Please define compatibilism and I can show you how you have misunderstood the idea.

I'm afraid you cannot put morality aside as compatibilism is designed to answer the free will problem of moral responsibility

I see you can't answer the question.
Yawn!!

How droll.
First an ad hominem before your scathing and empty denial.
Ho fucking Hum lol.

Now show me the gene that says "I'm English"