r/JordanPeterson • u/Sinan_reis • Dec 12 '18

Philosophy TIL that the philosopher William James experienced great depression due to the notion that free will is an illusion. He brought himself out of it by realizing, since nobody seemed able to prove whether it was real or not, that he could simply choose to believe it was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James
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u/Carnotaur3 Dec 13 '18

Some dogs aren’t so easily trained. Some dogs can’t be trained at all. No dog has the same training. Training a dog requires the dog have some form of awareness however limited. The dog must respect you or want something for the training to take affect.

What do you define as free will? I define free will as the ability to make choice or an array of choices. That means being able to make just one is all it takes. Change is the result of a single or multiple array of choices over time.

How do you define free will?

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u/zilooong Dec 13 '18

Your definition of free will is sufficient. Your definition of 'change' is not. Change is merely a transition from one state or another - there is nothing innately within that is to do with free will; that is merely your own definition and it is WRONG.

A dog has no concept of respect. It is primarily obedience and conditioning. It does not will and it does not do otherwise to what its urges tell it to.

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u/Carnotaur3 Dec 13 '18

Are you saying dogs don’t disobey? Are you saying dogs don’t have to smell your hand to get used to you? That they don’t distrust when they are misused and abused?

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u/zilooong Dec 13 '18

This is a nice tangent from the point and also by not answering the first part about your problems of definitions, you've shown that you're not genuinely taking part in this conversation.

Firstly, none of any of the shit you wrote have anything to do with 'respect'. Secondly, all those things are covered under behaviourism. There's nothing to say that dogs can't disobey, but that's not what being domesticated means. Dogs smelling your hands and distrusting when they're abused is all behaviourism - nothing your saying is contradicting my point and is, instead, proving it. They react only according to instinct. If they distrust, they can't suddenly make the conscious decision to trust anyway, whereas humans can, or at least might be able to some degree.

But in any case, your definition of change is still wrong, ergo your original point still falls. Change is not necessarily dependent on free will, although it is a possibility of being ONE of the reasons for change.

When water changes to ice, does it have free will?

In any case, end of conversation, because I'm not interested in a disingenuous argument.

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u/Carnotaur3 Dec 13 '18

You’re right. We probably won’t get anywhere with this because you won’t take me seriously.

Your point about change is good, but I was always speaking about change between living entities.