Hacker News Reader

HNHacker News

Top New Best Ask Show Jobs

Comment by temporarely | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

temporarely·

You are confusing suggestibility with the question of free will.

View on HN

How do you expect to refuse suggestion without free will?

You’re confusing different levels of free will.

To us free will feels real because that’s how our neurons fire. We can refuse because there are patterns of neuron activation that lead to the physical act of refusal.

If you don't have free will, you shouldn't be able to resist my suggestion. That's what it means to lack free will - to obey suggestion. If free will existed in this form, then your claim that free will doesn't exist will be wrong. If you want to say that some forms of free will exist and some don't, feel free to elaborate which do and which don't. If you want to say that compatibilistic free will exist and libertarian doesn't, that's completely reasonable, but "free will exists" is the accurate description of this situation.

Will is affecting, bringing about, one's intent. Intentions are based on thought. Thought is engendered in the mind. A weak mind is susceptible to suggestions. Suggestibility is indicative of an inability to resist 'external' (not necessarily in the physical sense) influences.

The question of free will is meaningful as a dual of the proposition of determinism. I suggest to you :) that you lack clarity of thought and need to work on that.

You can't answer a simple question, but I lack clarity of thought? Nice projection.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com