Do we have freewill?

You are only agnostic because you don’t have a choice.

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Free will is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate. I don’t believe in fate, but can anyone really believe our actions and thoughts are never constrained by necessity? I have to say I’m dubious, We could test it, try holding your breath, or going without sleep. I suspect your brain and body would negate your free will at some point, which is just as well.

I agree, theists generally set a very low bar for claims to knowledge, so they pretend they are nor agnostic. Even the one’s who use argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacies by presenting arguments that insist you cannot “prove” a deity does not exist. They usually fail to realise this is a rational and epistemological reason to disbelieve in such deities, not a reason to believe in them. As is easily demonstrated when you offer them other unfalsifiable concepts, like an invisible unicorn, then the goal posts are fairly swiftly moved in my experience of such theistic apologetics.

Hahaha don’t be so robotic Sheldon. By “feel” I am speaking informally of course and mean what do you opine, what do you think, what is your stance on the issue. I couldn’t obviously expect you to have any emotional feelings about a branch of logical reasoning.

Does that mean you are also agnostic about Zeus and the Sun god Ra?

What is the difference between an invisible, intangible, unicorn that cannot be smelled, heard, tasted or otherwise detected in any physical way, and no unicorn at all?

In other words according to your reasoning we must be agnostic about everything from Star Wars, to Star Trek, to Lord of the Rings, to Harry Potter etc simply because we cannot falsify their existence.

I cannot agree that we are forced to be agnostic about every hallucination, delusion or figment of imagination always and everywhere simply because it’s unfalsifiable

consider Russell’s teapot

We should not be too open minded lest our brains fall out.

A typical deductive argument

Premise 1: All humans are mammals
Premise 2: I am a human
Conclusion: Therefore I am a mammal

Premises are true so the conclusion is guaranteed to be true.

I know I have free will. I could go out and take a shit out in the parking lot in front of everyone if I wanted to. But I’ll pass. I don’t want to have a cop walk up into my office at work and arrest me for indecent exposure. :rofl:

My point of free choice.

Free will would be the ability to not shit. Mind you Kimmy (North Korea) makes that claim :wink:

Ahem… If you accept the premises to be true… then the conclusions are ture.

Some humans are aliens… They are among us… you know… The lizzard people. They are reptillian.

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( EDIT: I obviously said this wrong - what follow is the edit.) “Free Will” must be empirically defined else we are all speaking over one another. If anyone is referencing a free will that is an independent action or decision to act, completely free of any and all influence both internal and external, then that free will does not exist. We are all influenced.

If the assertion of free will is towards holding people accountable for their actions in what matters, reasonable actions of moral decisions in determining the difference between right and wrong in a given situation, then certainly, human beings are mostly capable of this and can be held responsible for having free will based on objectively demonstrated competency.

I have extensive experience working with ADHD kids. I have been to court and provided expert testamony. In juvenile court, guilt or innocence is not what is decided. In juvenile court, the decision is, “What is in the best interest of the child.” The primary question addressed is, “Does the child know the difference between right and wrong.”

Okay, here is my standard line of expert testamony. "Yes. If you give the child vignettes and ask him or her to describe right and wrong behaviors, he or she will be able to do it successfully. The child does know the difference. At the same time, the child has been diagnosed with ADHD and generally some form of Oppositioal Defiant Disorder, Learning disability, or a host of other emotional problems. The question should not be, “Does the child know the difference. Knowing the difference is not enough. The child does not have the impuls control to act on the knowledge. It’s like an overweight person who knows they should not be eathing fried chicken and eating it anyway. They do not have the impulse control to resist. Knowing that bucket of chicken is bad for them is not enough to prevent them from eating it. These kids have not learned to control their impulses, whether or not they know right from wrong.”

Really. Would be thrilled to see you demonstrate that, seeing as no one in recorded history has managed to do that so far. You might be the first.

Hitchen’s razor is simply an argument from absence and is incorrect.
A lack of empirical evidence suggests, but does not demonstrate absence. There is no empirical absence for any claims about god(s) That does not allow me to claim there is no god. That would be an affirming claim and atttract the burden of proof .

The best I am able to assert is “I do not believe”. I make no claims.

My position is that of agnostic atheist. I do not believe but do not claim to know.

I am agnostic about ALL unfalsifiable claims, I cannot rationally be otherwise. Since nothing can be known about unfalsifiable claims, and agnosticism is the belief that nothing can be known about something. I disbelieve all deities as no objective evidence can be demonstrated to support the claims they exist, and if the concept or claim is unfalsifiable I am also agnostic, again I cannot rationally be otherwise.

It was just a hypothetical example of an unfalsifiable claim. I never claimed there was any objective difference, which is why I don’t believe unfalsifiable claims, and remain agnostic about them.

Stop introducing straw man red herrings and look up the definition of unfalsifiable, then the definition of agnosticism. Fuck it, I’ll do it for you…

unfalsifiable

Not capable of being proved false

agnostic
noun

  1. a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God.

So just as Russel asserted with his teapot analogy, I withhold belief from unfalsifiable claims as the burden of proof lies with the person making that claim, I cannot however make any knowledge claims because the analogy is deliberately an unfalsifiable one, thus **I am also an agnostic about the claim. **

Well leaving aside the additional red herring straw man fallacies, which I have removed, please tell me what knowledge you can claim to demonstrate about an unfalsifiable claim, beyond the fact nothing is or can be known about it?

Agnosticism is defined as the belief that nothing is known, or can be known about something, in this context a deity. An unfalsifiable claim is a claim that nothing can be known about. It’s not that difficult a concept really.

Again you are showing you don’t understand agnosticism, or Russel’s teapot apparently. Russell’s teapot is an analogy, to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims , rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others.

Nothing I have said disagrees with Russel’s analogy, since I would disbelieve such a claim precisely because it is unfalsifiable, and also remain an agnostic as it is unfalsifiable. I cannot know anything about an unfalsifiable claim, that’s what it means. Agnosticism is the belief nothing is known or can be known about something. In the religious context this is a deity, but it applies to all unfalsifiable claims, obviously.

Open minded means considering all ideas and claims without bias or prejudice, how exactly can one be “too unbiased?”

Oh dear…

Premise 1: All humans are mammals
Premise 2: A cat is a mammal
Conclusion: Therefore I am a cat.

Try again…valid premises need not guarantee a truthful conclusion, and no human method can guarantee the truth of its conclusion, that’s axiomatic. Humans created the scientific method which improved on its precursors logic and philosophy. Science’s robust principles include that all claims and ideas must be falsifiable, and that they remain tentative and open to revision in light of new evidence.

Truthful conclusion cannot be guaranteed by any human method, that is axiomatic.

Haha, this is not a valid argument Sheldon, nor is it a deductive one because the conclusion does not follow necessarily from the premises.

Your example and mine are not the same

I agree, completely. I was reading up on how people can be both agnostic and atheist at the same time and I totally get it now. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

Those are straw man fallacies, as I made neither claim.

You claimed…

In my example both premises were true, and the conclusion was not. Logic is not infallible, no human method of reasoning can be, thus absolutes like the one you used when you said validity could be guaranteed by logic, are untrue.

Another straw man fallacy, as I never claimed they were. My example specifically addressed your claim:

My example was sufficient to disprove that claim, as both premises were true, and the conclusion demonstrably not. It was a rationally consistent argument, but the conclusion was wrong, deliberately of course, but nonetheless.

You’re welcome, it’s a quite common misconception.

I never said validity is guaranteed by logic. If an argument is not valid, its not logical in the first place.

What I should have said is that valid, sound, deductive arguments with true premises guarantee a true conclusion, which in philosophical and mathematical logic is a definition.

Nonetheless you used it as a counterargument which you shouldn’t have because it was not a sound, valid example of a deductive argument.

You have said it several times…

That was the first example of you making the claim.

You’re shifting the goal posts, and that sounds like a No True Scotsman fallacy as well. You claimed…

Again this is wrong, and I demonstrated that with my example where both premises were correct and the conclusion demonstrably wrong.

It is possible for a valid argument to have a false conclusion …

Bringing us back to your original claim being incorrect, logically valid arguments do not guarantee valid conclusions.

you know that truth and validity are different things right? An argument can be valid but not true.