New bag. Wedding Cake. Not bad, but it is like a sleeping pill with a 3 hour delay. Zzzzzzz

Yeahbut, the infinite number of other universes in other timelines and dimensions may not recognize this universe as an intrinsic person within the totality of existence. In which case, it would have to be bestowed.

Now you're bringing quantum theory into this?

One thing at a time, sir.

I was just having fun!

What a grouch. :p:

still a person :vikingsmi

Yes, you are.

Now, exactly what it is that makes you a person rather than a bio-robot?

We kinda touched on those qualities or characteristics up-thread, self-awareness mebbe bein’ chief among them.

What is self-awareness? A loop? A mirror?

You should watch some Krishnamurti on you tube. He goes deep into questions like that. Deeeep.

For all intents and purposes, we have what may as well be considered free will. Within the boundaries of what our perception of the nature of reality and consciousness is, we're completely free to make whatever choices the boundaries of our imagination can think of. It's like bowling in a bumper lane, except we're literally not able to see outside the lane and we think what's inside that narrow little strip is a limitless field of choices that we have 100% control over. Hubris and arrogance. We're!! Number!! One!!

It's a cheap, easy joke to say "herp derp this guy thinks we don't have free will." You're joking, I hope.

Unless they reboot the game.

Flint
 

I'm a big proponent for our having (being) free wills (specifically: agent causation [which is to say, I stand in opposition to determinism]).

What I'm wonderin': How do you square "We’re running a program written in the code of unfolding proteins." with "we're completely free to make whatever choices the boundaries of our imagination can think of."

The two notions seem at odds to me.

I like the bumper lanes analogy

I can only give personal experience

It's like, I'm pretty antisocial; raised as an only child with no father, and pretty neurotic, introversion is my gig. I avoid parties, because all too often, I'm the guy who doesn't know what to do there, and then I just make everyone else uncomfortable.

But as a human, I am built to be social, and cannot live without other people.

In my worst situation, jobless, without a relationship, stuck in a shithole, I would wind up not seeing any human being in a week. And then, when I would finally interact with someone, like a bank teller, I would strike up a five minute conversation, if it was possible.

Then I would look back at it, and think, who the hell was that? Because that's not me. I don't just talk to a teller for five minutes. I've never done that in my life. But I couldn't help it one bit.

So for me, bumper lanes are: built by Darwin to be social, built by early conditioning to be antisocial.

You're just exerting normalizing pressure on yourself when you label yourself Introvert or Whatever ist.

Categorizing ourselves separates us from each other. We think it gives us the opposite. Under all of it, though, we all bleed red blood.

They're not. And the reason is, in a nutshell, because things are very, very complicated. A hundred thousand million billion times more complicated than we will ever figure out, given our best tools and best methods of investigation. We're not designed to understand it, and we never will. The Grand Design that creates us and gives us life, whether you call it God, whether you call it science, it's way, way, way too complicated for us to get even a mere inkling of understanding what's actually going on. And no matter how many gene sequences and neurochemical pathways we follow the trail of, we are chasing an answer that is not obtainable by us.

We're not designed to know the answer, but one thing I deeply believe is that just because we are ignorant of something doesn't mean that it's magic.

We can study of bacteria and say that it consumes nutrients because that's what it's programmed to do, of course it doesn't have self-awareness, it's just performing a robotic series of actions. That seems obvious to us. Ourselves, however look at how many different, amazing, creative choices we can make, of course there's no way that could just be a range of choices we're designed to do, right? Because it "feels" like we're in control, and we have all this consciousness and fancy cognitive ability, never mind that we don't actually understand how any of it works. So, since we don't understand it-- of course it must be magic! Only Magic and Supernatural Voodoo could animate us to do all the wonderful, amazing things we do. Since we don't understand *the entire process from beginning to end* it has to be magic? That argument just doesn't hold water for me.

Everything is explainable. Everything happens for a reason. Including every single thing that it's possible for a human being to do in their entire lifetime. That's the way the universe works. The idea that we are special and exempt from the laws of the universe is literally ludicrous to me. And the argument for "free will" is that it "feels" like we have it? Ha ha ha!! That's a paper that we'd get an "F" on, in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the trait of "free will" is useful only as a variable to find a more efficient/successful path when adverse circumstances make it necessary. A creature with free will is never going to survive as well as one with instincts adapted to its environment--it will make the wrong choice more often than the creature that has evolved a set of deterministic behaviors.

You can't get rid of free will entirely, because then you lose the ability to adapt if the environment suddenly shifts. But it's a losing bet, in the short term. Free will is the "random mutation" of behavioral evolution, that's all.