That is a shame, if i was a lecturer at college, i would ask my students what they thought free will was before introducing them to the works of others and then see where the discussion goes.



Why not? I have come to a definition of free will without discussing the work done before me and, according to some of the links you posted, some of my arguments echo these works. Whether my definitions are right or wrong is a different kettle of fish but if i just go "Aristotle said that" or "Descartes said this" then the conclusions that i have come to in regard to free will are not really my own.



I have no problem reading the thoughts of philosophers, no matter how dense, but i also think that it is healthy to think about philosophical concepts from an individual perspective using knowledge and experience that one has gained through life. Isn"t part of the beauty of philosophy that anyone can have a crack at it, no matter how well educated or uneducated they happen to be.No one was telling Socrates "Nope you can"t define such and such without reading so and so"....(please don"t read that last sentence as me comparing myself to Socrates)

@ Hug

It is incredibly beneficial (and painful ) once your personal philosophy is rock solid, to digest the thought logic of the great minds. I think you will find a multitude of parallels and associations that further strengthen your view. Who knows, you could find a revolutionary pattern that has remained hidden for centuries.

Hugs you can chalk this up to TWICE now that you and I are in total agreement.

^This. Key in on the "once your personal philosophy is rock solid"... maybe not even rock solid, but at least well formed enough that you have formed an understanding.

Imagine a multi-verse which includes every possible you. Which “you” has free will?

I do agree with this guys but please do not think that i have an aversion to reading up on the thoughts of philosophers. I can just about deal with the dense philosophical stuff. I simply did not have the time to give them the attention that they warranted.

Imagine a multi-verse which includes every possible you. Which “you” has free will?

I only know that i know nothing. My knowledge comes from an unknowing.

free will is a human idea..it exists only in the realm of platonic idealism. The truth outside of that realm is that the question of free will is likely to be meaningless.

There is no freedom when there is will.

In fact my grad school advisor used to tell me that it was better to work on a problem before reading the literature. He said if you read the works of others before you explore the problem yourself you are more likey to get tapped in local thought minima.... Basically translating to your thinking has been biased by the thoughts of another which makes it harder, though not impossible, to break out of the mold and challenge the status quo.

Ever wonder why it's typically young people that invent the most disruptive technologies and or device the breath taking new solutions that radically change a paradigm? It's because they don't have years of bias like old academics do. Example James Watson devised the solution to the structure of DNA in his early 20's. Jimi Hendrix died at 27. Duanne Allman completely reinvented what it means to play slide guitar..dead at 24... etc... Yeah sure old people do good things to, but paradigms are broken by the young and naive that haven't spent a life time studying those that came before them.

Just out of curiosity do you think the current growth of our species is sustainable to the planet?

It seems completely obvious to me that anyone up on current environmental disasters could easily understand how halving the human population would be an immense boon to life on the planet and thus our species by extension in a given time frame.

During the last two centuries, both population and prosperity exploded. Maybe the world just enjoyed incredibly good luck, but it makes you wonder: Could rising population be a cause of rising prosperity?

Yes. Economists’ central discovery about economic growth is that new ideas are more important than labor or capital.[7] The main reason we’re richer than we used to be is that we know more than we used to know. We know how one man can grow food for hundreds. We know how to build flying machines. We know how to build iPhones. Best of all: Once one person discovers a new idea, billions can cheaply adopt it.

Once you recognize the power of ideas, the value of population comes into focus.[8] People—especially smart, creative people—are the source of new ideas. Imagine deleting half the names in your music collection—or half the visionaries in the computer industry. Think how much poorer the world would be. But population doesn’t merely increase the supply of new ideas. It increases the demand as well. Suppose an idea is worth $1 per person, but takes a decade to develop. On an island with a hundred inhabitants, the idea would remain undiscovered; inventors are better off picking coconuts. But in a world with seven billion customers, inventors scramble to bring the new idea to market.

Consider languages. There are far more books, movies, and television shows in English than in Romanian. Supply is one reason: Far more writers and directors speak English than Romanian. But demand is also crucial: English-speaking customers are far more numerous. Michael Kremer’s celebrated “Population Growth and Technological Change: 1,000,000 B.C. to 1990” generalizes this insight to all of human history.[9] Small, isolated populations in places like Tasmania stagnate or regress.[10] Large, connected populations in places like Eurasia progress—and the pace of progress quickens as their populations multiply.

Population also enriches us in a more immediate way. Despite constant complaints about cities’ crowds and congestion, city folk gladly pay higher urban rents. Even introverts and outright misanthropes shell out massive premiums to live near millions of strangers. What are they after? The obvious answer is choices—choices about where to work, what to buy, how to play, and who to meet. These choices, like ideas, come from people—suppliers who offer them, and demanders who sustain them. When population goes up, everyone gets extra choices.

The population-choice connection is most visible in a city. But physical proximity is not essential. Thanks to modern communications and transport, people in the middle of nowhere still belong to a global civilization. Whether we’re urban, suburban, or rural, we all enjoy a vast menu of occupations, lifestyles, hobbies, cultures, and social networks thanks to the billions of strangers who share the planet.

After two centuries of rising population and rising prosperity, attempts to blame low living standards on overpopulation have worn thin. The most popular anti-population arguments now come from environmentalists. But their case is surprisingly weak. We’re not “running out” of food, fuel, or minerals. Despite occasional price spikes, real commodity prices have fallen about 1% per year for over a century.[11] Air and water quality in the First World have been improving for decades despite rising population.[12] Genuine problems remain, but limiting population to counter environmental problems is using a sword to kill a mosquito. Pollution taxes and congestion prices are far cheaper and more humane remedies.[13]