Sorry if this has already been discussed, but I'm in a contemplative mood tonight and would rather not keep my thoughts to myself, no matter how many times they've already been stated.

I believe that the concept of free will is simply illogical. Many people seem to believe that the only logical alternative to free will is pre-destination, but that's not the case. In fact, it seems to me that a logical explanation of what ultimately causes our actions involves neither of the concepts.

My basic premise is that thoughts become actions, and we can't control our thoughts. For example, try looking out the window (if the room you're in has a window) and "choosing" the first thought that comes to mind. You can't. What comes just comes, and it comes due to your interpretation of external factors. This interpretation is the product of your unchosen reaction to past experiences. If you look outside and think to yourself, "Man, my Dad's mowing the lawn again, maybe I should help him," then it is the sight of your Dad mowing the lawn paired with your knowledge that he has mowed the lawn, by himself, every weekend for six weeks running that causes you to arrive at this thought. Conversely, another person might see their Dad mowing the lawn and simply think, "Oh, my Dad's mowing the lawn." This thought might arise because the person in question understands that mowing the lawn is his Dad's responsibility just like doing the dishes is his responsibility. In neither case was either of the subjects capable of determining how they viewed the situation of their Dad mowing the lawn.

Also, there is evidence to support the idea that thoughts form as a result of biological urges. If you're a straight male and an extremely attractive girl walks by, for instance, you might think "God she's hot!" This thought would require no interpretation of previous external factors to lead you to it; in fact, a straight male who had never been exposed to an attractive female and saw one for the first time would still think it, although he might be very confused about why he was thinking it.

But of course, it has to be more complex than that, and it is. Simply thinking a thought does not guarantee that you will make it into an action (if such were the case, every person who ever cut in front of you in a line might be dead right now). It seems to me that before a thought can become an action, it is passed through a mental filter on which it is judged on three separate levels: how logical it is, how ethical it is, and how comfortable it is. But the thought's passing through this filter cannot be confused with free will. The filter itself, just like the thought that's going through it, is a creation of biological disposition and/or interpretation of previous external factors.

Logic, ethics and comfort are all relative things. While the practicality of this statement can be debated, the truth of it cannot. A person who has received no academic education would think certain things were logical that someone fortunate enough to be educated in a first-world country would scoff at. Ethics are even more relative; to some, being ethical means following the teachings of the Bible. To others, it is the Koran. To others still, being ethical is as simple as striving to do what is pragmatically best for society. Of course, these are broad categories that could be broken into millions of very different subcategories each (e.g., one follower of the Koran might look to the passage "Do not destroy yourself" while another might look to the passage "He that leaves his dwelling to fight for God and His apostle and is then overtaken by death shall be rewarded by God" when making a decision on a given issue). Lastly, there is the matter of comfort, which is another very subjective thing. To a person who had a very bad experience having blood drawn as a child, submitting oneself to a blood test might seem like a very uncomfortable thing to do. Another person might not find it uncomfortable at all. It also deserves mention that these three criterion--logical, ethical, and comfortable--can play into one another. For example, foregoing a blood test at the risk of not receiving needed medical treatment might seem a perfectly logical thing to do to a person who found blood tests exceptionally uncomfortable.

If any given thought survives this filter, it becomes a motivation for an action. Once it's a motivation for an action, it will be carried out unless the filter grabs it again and forces you to re-evaluate it. For example, if a person genuinely reaches the conclusion that killing a man he doesn't like named Bob would be a logical thing to do, a morally acceptable thing to do, and not too uncomfortable, he will do it. The only reason he is not killing Bob right now is because he doesn't have a gun. But he will get a gun (or a knife or a bottle of poison) unless the filter grabs the thought again and forces him into what we identify as "self-doubt." If such thoughts, courtesy of the filter, as "nah, it would make more sense to make Bob's life a living hell" or "I couldn't live with the guilt of killing a man" or "getting blood on my clothes would be extremely undesirable" entered the man's head, he would not kill Bob.

So there you have it. Every action is caused directly by a motivation, and a "motivation" is nothing more than a thought a man cannot control being put through a filter a man cannot control. At first glance, this might seem no different than pre-destiny, considering that every human is influencing every other human through no free will of his own. Where this and pre-destiny differ, however, is the acceptance of chance. Earthquakes happen, for instance, and they are not the product of any human's actions. Obviously, "wrong place at the wrong time" weather phenomena can have a huge impact on people's life, and how people interpret such phenomena will inevitably go on to influence their "decisions" in the future. Unless earthquakes and tornadoes are pre-destined--which sounds to me like a rather ridiculous concept--a lack of free will and a lack of pre-destiny do not automatically contradict one another.

To make my viewpoint clear: I don't believe that people should be excused or pardoned for their actions simply because their actions were beyond their control. Obviously, people should be punished for actions that are detrimental to society, because their interpretation and memory of the punishment will influence their future decisions.

So what, then, was the point of this post? I don't know. I'm bored. One interesting thing it does bring up, though, is how stupid the concepts of heaven and hell are. If everyone believes they are acting logically, ethically and comfortably at any given time, how is it at all fair to send certain people to heaven while banishing others to hell? I suppose you could argue that those who put comfort ahead of logic and ethics are going to hell, but when you look at suicide bombers that idea runs out of steam. Those guys are definitely putting their skewed views of logic and ethics way ahead of comfort, and somehow I doubt they're bound for heaven. What those who believe in heaven will invariably bring the argument back around to is that some things are objectively ethically good while others are objectively ethically bad. I'm not sure if this is the case, but it's irrelevant; if people don't choose the wrong path but are forced down the wrong path, what difference does an absolute ethical goodness make?

So why do so many people cling to the illusion of free will? Because it feels like we have it. It feels like at any given time, we can change what we're doing and do something else completely at random if we so desire. But such is simply not the case.

Bah, I have a feeling this is one of those posts that's gonna sound really stupid tomorrow morning.

MMM probably no one come backs to these things and checks them out, but here's an interesting point i noticed:

[QOUTE]

quote:

Take the story of the two twins for example. They are biologically almost identical, they live in the same household, they were raised with the same values from the same parents, they go to the same school, they take the same classes, they have the same friends. so theoretically speaking, they should have the same "filters".

Did one go for a walk one day while the other stayed home and watched TV? Badda-bing, different filters. [QOUTE]

ummm...what prompted one of the identical kids to make a different decision than the other one? Wouldn't they have to choose if they were gonna stay inside or watch tv?

::shrug::

seems kinda like a free will choice more than a filtered choice.

Good point, CLPO. What I forgot to make room for were things like OCD, but I think such conditions should be treated like what they are: fairly rare abnormalities that alter normal function of the brain. I think the healthy brain functions pretty much like I described when making decisions.

I think "little impulse control" fits into the spectrum of the filter. It's possible to make a bad decision and know at one level you're making a bad decision, but to go on and make it because you've temporarily decided that immediate comfort outweighs logic or ethics. Let's say a person--let's call him "not Aguagon"--feels compelled to touch a cactus to see if it will really ***** him. He knows there's a darn good chance it will, yet due to "little impulse control" he proceeds anyway. "Not Aguagon" is able to logically deduce that the question of whether or not the cactus would have pricked him will eat away at him if he doesn't try it. So, he is able to temporarily put his own comfort and general common sense aside to satisfy his curiosity.

Writing this makes me realize that to limit everything to "logical", "ethical", and "comfortable" may be a pretty stupid idea. That much really boils down to semantics, but I still stand by my altered original point: that if we have a physiologically healthy brain, we are only ultimately capable of doing what our filters tell us is the single best course of immediate action, and that the filters are shaped by factors beyond our control.

I also feel it's important to point out that "psychotic" behavior in no way implies a physiologically disturbed mind. I doubt we'll ever agree on this, but I really think there's a fairly good chance at the time Scott Peterson was killing his wife, he did view his actions as prudent.

EDIT: Jeez, YN filter inventors, catcti pr!ck people. Grow up.

That's not neccessarily true, Aguagon. What's to stop someone with very little impulse control thinking, "I wonder what it's like to jump off a cliff," and then doing it? For any normal person, the fact that such an action would end in death or severe injury but for someone who has no such inhibitions, it might just be as simple as jumping off a small ledge. They probably don't believe it's the best course of action, yet they do it anyways. I'm sure Scot Peterson didn't think killing his wife would be a prudent course of action, yet he killed her just the same.

Wow, I leave for a month and this happens. Okay, time to take it from the top:

quote:

Originally posted by ExistentialPenguin:
It eliminates justice because than how can we persecute a person who didn’t consciously do what he did, but was done by a higher power we cannot perceive or comprehend?

And the evidence that you didn't really comprehend my original post begins. I do not believe in a higher power, nor do I believe in free will. As for persecution and justice: if anything, my theory emphasizes the need for them. If people have a future punishment to worry about, it will do a lot to shape their current actions. Other quotes of yours--and here I'm talking specifically about the "continuous state of rot and decay" business--seem to indicate that you missed this part of the idea entirely. If a person can comprehend consequences and use the comprehension of those consequences when putting ideas through his filter, he will more likely than not set himself up to make helpful, productive decisions. Obviously, there are numerous exceptions to this rule, but I firmly believe that when a person makes a destructive decision it is due to a skewed perception either of the consequences themselves or of the necessity of the possible action. People do not choose to have skewed perceptions of the world. Ergo, no free will, yet a non-decaying world. Are we amazed yet?

quote:

What are bad decisions is yours Aguagon. To promote the idea that everything is arbartrary is suggesting nothing is logical

Yes, it is. Now if you can show me where I so much as implied that everything is arbitrary, dinner's on me.

I could quote several more places where you brought up seemingly good points that had absolutely no relevance to any of my posts, but I'll save myself the time. What it boils down to is this: you're under the impression that I'm denying the existence of higher thought. I'm not. I'm simply suggesting that higher thought, at least as it applies to making decisions, is something human beings ultimately have no control over.

You laugh at my theory that external and biological factors are solely responsible for shaping our decisions, so I implore you: what else is responsible? And please don't just answer "free will"; please explain to me what "free will" means to you. In other words, if we don't fully base our decisions on reactions to environmental stimuli and biological disposition, what do we base our decisions on? Either I'm missing something huge, or you're inadvertently suggesting that sheer randomness plays a significant role in our decision-making. That sounds a lot more dysfunctional than mental filters to me.

quote:

An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not posses.

Damn, I hate it when I'm forced into these uncomfortable situations. I can either side with Ayn Rand or with the general scientific community, and both just sound so gosh darn appealing. *Thinks it over* Sorry, but after some deliberation, I'm gonna have to go with science on this one. I'll demonstrate what I'm talking about by providing a few counter-examples to your examples:

quote:

We‘ll take the hypothetical person on the bridge. He walking along, minding his own business when he is confronted by a huge 18-wheel rig on fire barreling down towards him filling up the whole bridge with screeching twisted metal and the roar of exploding flames offering no room for escape by simply dodging it to one side or the other. He must act instantly to save himself and this allows no time to pause and muse “now is this logical to throw myself off the bridge or is it better to be hit by the flame-effulged truck?.” nor does he have time to contemplate if it “is more comfortable to jump an unknown distance to the river bed below and risk snapping my neck or to be crushed by a truck and burned alive?” Man has two options - to think or not to think.

Wrong-o. If man has a properly functioning body, he has but one choice: to react. In such a situation, the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for higher thought in human beings, shuts itself off. Automatically. Like, as in, you don't even have to ask it too. It's cool like that. Anyway, the cerebral cortex shuts itself off, and guess what man is left with? Instinct. His body will flood with adrenaline and cortisol, and without a single truly intelligent thought, he will take the best course of action to save his own life. Man, in other words, will become an animal. And not a deer caught in the headlights, either; he'll become more like a pigeon or a fly. If you throw a rock at a pigeon, it flies away. Do you think a pigeon needs to intelligently understand what a rock is to fly away from that rock? Do you think the pigeon really sits there thinking "hmm, a rock's coming at me; I wonder if I should move away from it?" No. It senses its life is in danger, and it gets out of the way.

So the man in your example, if truly caught by surprise, would not choose to jump off the bridge; he would do it automatically, because it presents a higher chance of survival than getting creamed by the truck. Even if he was on his way to jump off a cliff and end his life, he would still jump out of the way of the truck, if it truly caught him by surprise. The human body is wired to live, and unless a person actively decides to kill himself by working the idea through his filters, he will unconsciously do what is immediately necessary to keep himself alive.

My favorite example of this is the car crash I was in a couple years ago. My Dad was driving and I was in the passenger seat; we hit the side of a van that made an illegal turn dead on at no less than 30 mph. The glass on the passenger side of the windshield shattered inward. It caught us completely off-guard; my Dad barely had time to step on the brake. As we were driving along, I was listening to my CD player, with the kind of headphones that go directly in your ears. Those are extremely painful to have yanked out of your ears; believe me, I know. So what did I do in the split-second I had to "think" about the best course of action to save my life? I didn't think at all, although I did pull my headphones out (preventing an earache), duck down, and cover my head (preventing being cut by the shattering glass). I had no idea I had done any of these things until I was safely out of the car and able to reflect on what I must have done in the situation for it to work out just the way it had. I got off with only a few bruises. A religious man would have called my getting off so easy a miracle. It was, of course, deep thought shutting off and the instinct you claim humans don't possess taking over.

quote:

Take the story of the two twins for example. They are biologically almost identical, they live in the same household, they were raised with the same values from the same parents, they go to the same school, they take the same classes, they have the same friends. so theoretically speaking, they should have the same "filters".

Did one go for a walk one day while the other stayed home and watched TV? Badda-bing, different filters.

And that ends my response to Penguin. I realize I was even more of an a$$ than usual, and for that I apologize; it's just that I can only stand having a certain amount of superfluous BS crammed down my throat before I snap. I'm sure Penguin will "forgive" me, and sarcastically tell me I had no choice in the matter. And in the sense my theory presents, he's dead on. If I had any intent of making this post any more friendly, I would make the edits right now. Therefore, my apology is token and fraudulent.

Man, psuedo-intellectuals upset me...

quote:

Originally posted by clpo13:
then how do you explain irrational random acts, such as suddenly leaping off a cliff or murdering your wife and children, even when there is no external stimuli to provoke such actions?

Basically, my theory is that there is no such thing as irrational random acts. In order for you to jump off a cliff or murder your children, at the time you do it you simply must believe it is the best course of action. Anything from years of abuse to an adverse reaction to a prescription drug has the potential put a person in this highly unlikely state.

If what you say is true (everyone except Penguin), then how do you explain irrational random acts, such as suddenly leaping off a cliff or murdering your wife and children, even when there is no external stimuli to provoke such actions?

quote:

Originally posted by ExistentialPenguin:
that would be true, if there weren't the anomolies that proves otherwise.

Take the story of the two twins for example. They are biologically almost identical, they live in the same household, they were raised with the same values from the same parents, they go to the same school, they take the same classes, they have the same friends. so theoritically speaking, they should have the same "filters". Yet one goes off to become a soldier while the other goes off to become a peace activist. Thats where the theory falls apart. Sure people might have these filters, but they aren't what makes the final decision They choose to let what effects them and how. Thats why a person who had done nothing but "evil" actions all his life can lay down his life to save a child, or why a "good" person who never toed the line could turn around and become a mass murderer the next day.

Its that chaotic factor of life that permits the impossible in the face of predestination that we call free will.

In my opinion, you have given an impossible example. Do you have any evidence that such a pair of twins existed? It's more often than not that twins end up having a least one friend different or at least one activity different and even that single factor could cause one to be a solider and one to be a peace activist.

I think Aguagon's basis is that every single person is different and has at least one different experience from another person.

that would be true, if there weren't the anomolies that proves otherwise.

Take the story of the two twins for example. They are biologically almost identical, they live in the same household, they were raised with the same values from the same parents, they go to the same school, they take the same classes, they have the same friends. so theoritically speaking, they should have the same "filters". Yet one goes off to become a soldier while the other goes off to become a peace activist. Thats where the theory falls apart. Sure people might have these filters, but they aren't what makes the final decision They choose to let what effects them and how. Thats why a person who had done nothing but "evil" actions all his life can lay down his life to save a child, or why a "good" person who never toed the line could turn around and become a mass murderer the next day.

Its that chaotic factor of life that permits the impossible in the face of predestination that we call free will.

I think you may have misunderstood Aguagon's post. His statement isn't simply, "Free will does not exist." He goes on to explain that the reason for this is due to other factors that we are not in control of.

I mean, there's a reason why some people are themselves and others follow people instead of doing their own thing. Aguagon is saying that these people ended up this way, not from a mental choice saying, "I'm going to be an individual," but from mental processes we went through that are beyond our grasp. We didn't even realize what we were thinking or when we were thinking it but just did as we felt was right.

That's not exactly free will.

quote:

I don't know why you said this or how you got it from my post. By the way, free will is not the same as individualism.[QOUTE]

they go hand in hand in one another. How can one be an individual without having the ability to choose to be one?


[Qoute]No, no more time. School is out in a week if you can wait that long.

lol patience is something i don't lack.

quote:

lol worthwaitingfor, so much for freewill or individualism.

I don't know why you said this or how you got it from my post. By the way, free will is not the same as individualism.

quote:

but than again, no more evidence to back yourselves up either...

No, no more time. School is out in a week if you can wait that long.

lol worthwaitingfor, so much for freewill or individualism.

cleticnewager; i needed to do that though. it seems that i needed to be explicatly clear on what i meant for it kept on being misunderstood, as i kept on qouteing what you said in the previous post. And who wants to read a book thats only a couple of sentences? no flavor or substance to it than.

but than again, no more evidence to back yourselves up either...

Look, it's wonderful that you use long essays to answer short sentences.

But that's not what I'm asking you for. A good writer doesn't need long, repetitive paragraphs and essays to explain a point. In fact, books that can summerize their ideas in one sentence are the ones accepted by publishers to sell.

You use fancy words and wordy sentences to cover up the fact that we're right and you're wrong.

Go away. We don't want you if you insist on calling an intelligent person stupid.

okay lets get really particular here.

Quote: “Yes, he's smart for that. The fact that a human being may acknowledge suicide does not make them stupid”

If he had just acknowledged the existence of such an action as suicide, than I would completely agree with you that does not make him stupid. To deny a reality of any particular action’s existence (even a bad one) is dangerous. Yet he doesn’t acknowledge it: he believes in it as a fact of existence.

Quote: “I believe that the concept of free will is simply illogical”

Now free will is man’s means for surviving. He does not have instincts. Desires to live or fears of death are not instincts. He has the willful choice to decide what to do with his life whither to jump off a bridge or to keep on walking straight along the middle of it. Aguagon noted before that people don‘t have this because the “filters” catch people from doing that. What about those people who think and act without the filters? Those that have to without waiting for it to shift through the layers of logic, ethics, and comfort? That’s the beauty of free will because it allows us to do that.
We‘ll take the hypothetical person on the bridge. He walking along, minding his own business when he is confronted by a huge 18-wheel rig on fire barreling down towards him filling up the whole bridge with screeching twisted metal and the roar of exploding flames offering no room for escape by simply dodging it to one side or the other. He must act instantly to save himself and this allows no time to pause and muse “now is this logical to throw myself off the bridge or is it better to be hit by the flame-effulged truck?.” nor does he have time to contemplate if it “is more comfortable to jump an unknown distance to the river bed below and risk snapping my neck or to be crushed by a truck and burned alive?” Man has two options - to think or not to think. Both are choices of free will. Not to think would be to remain frozen in place and die a certain death by fire and metal crushing down on him. Or to think and jump over the bridge that is the immediate solution with more guarantee of survival. That is the ability of free choice. How he jumps is up to him, whither it be whistling a merry tune or screaming in fear or stoically jumping with a cool calm collected approach. That’s also free choice as well. An argument might be “well what if he did it arbitrary?” Well, how often does burning trucks come barreling down towards a person while they are walking on bridges? I would call that arbitrary to the extreme as well. So that is man jumping over the bridge randomly, because he is responding to a random course of events.
Without free will man would react like any other animal would when confronted with a sudden occurrence not known by instincts; a deer caught in the headlights frozen because they don’t know what headlights are. So to believe free choice is illogical is to believe man does not have it and that leads to denial and a denial of the ability to live life is an acceptance to premature death: Suicide.
That’s not acknowledging it, that is believing in it as function to live. And that is stupid.
Oh yes about rebellion equals intelligence. This is only the case if it is rebelling against tyranny, oppression, conformity or slavery. Life I hope doesn’t fit into anyone of those four categories for people because that is what people are usually fighting for. Unfortunately, it does seem that the majority of people are rebelling against living these days, doesn’t it?

Now about my quote: “he is accountable for everything he wrote, past and present for it creates the sum of who he is.”

To which you wrote : “So when I write my novels, which I create different characters that are not I, that's me? That makes no sense whatsoever.”

Unless I was mistaken, we weren’t talking about fiction novels or sci-fi fantasy genre material here. What was being addressed I thought was the literal non-fiction material which he wrote. But lets address those different characters you had created for a moment.
What was the source for these characters? Manifestations of the different sides of us. The individual people that we are; the fearful side, the strong side, the comforting side, the warrior side, the healer side of us all. The characters are the manifestations of the many sides of one’s identity; the solidified people composed of our individual fragments. As individual characters, they are not you. To say that you are entirely one thing, such as only a good person or only a bad person, reduces the world into a flat 2-dimensional world of black and white. Which it is not. A person is capable of good things, and bad things, of giving birth to life or killing it. A person isn‘t just a hero. He is also poet, a soccer player, a friend, an enemy, etc, etc. There is more to a person than just the one side others often only see. What you are is the sum of all of those individual characters, some more so than others, but still the sum of them all. So those characters of yours, in a sense, are you. They are just the separate pieces of the infinitely complex puzzle of one’s identity.
Which means you are responsible for them.
You are responsible to see that what would actually happen, happens in the accordance to the law of reality. To portray, say a character of Aguagon’s mentality, as the person to dominate would have to be complimented by the consequences if such a person was to dominate the majority of minds in the world. It would lead to the stasis of life, a continuous state of rot and decay where no higher values are achieved for there would be no drive to become more than the sum of what one already is; a 1984 utopian society, where people can be erased into mechanisms to serve their environments and society. To show any other sort of fate would be a lie. Such is a writers responsibility.

Now for your other quote: “Yes, you have free will to do so (as we all), but that does not mean you're right. I label you as arrogant, when perhaps you might be humble, see? I could even assume you're a 68 year old man at a computer, but I may be wrong. You may likely think I am idiot teenager who is wasting my life, but you're definitely wrong there.”

How am I wrong? I take the evidence given to me by the omissions he wrote that he said he believed in and from there I come up with an analysis of what type of a person would write that. I don’t suppose or assume - to suppose or assume leaves me to have faith in the fact he is something else besides what he has presented me. So until he proves me wrong otherwise (as in to acknowledge that to believe free will is illogical is destructive to the point of self-inflicted mental mutilation) so I will still keep my opinion. Facts is what I live for. To have faith in people is like a religion: you have to believe in an abstraction of a possibility not accepting the actuality of reality. When he proves me wrong, I’ll accept that. I won’t deny it. Until than though I’ll keep my evaluation of what I think about him.
And you have the right to assume I am arrogant at the chance I might be humble instead. If that is what I seem to have presented to you, than you have the right to think that. What you think of me does not matter because I know who I am and what I am despite what you might think. That comes from the self-knowledge of who I am because I recognize all the parts that equal the sum of what makes me, Me. The assumption you made that I might think you’re an idiot teenager is kinda off-mark: I don’t know if you are wasting your life so I can’t say you are. You haven’t given me any proof to support that. And the fact you are questioning me instead of just accepting what I say as god’s truth shows you have the capacity of free will and intelligence: something I admire. But if you as a person start to deny what I’m saying without offering evidence to support what your saying, than my opinion will change of you. So far you have been offering what you believe is evidence. I’m offering my evidence to show why I know your evidence doesn’t add up to mine.
Oh yea the last P.P.P.S jab of mine was a sarcastic jab because sometimes people annoy me when they write down that age automatically equals wisdom or experience or inters natural rights unto those more….well-associated people. And to quote: “You have been here for too short of a period of time to judge Aguagon…” shows me that’s what you think. I’m not assuming things when you wrote it down in black and white by your name

quote:

you just contradicted yourself because if he's smart for what he writes, and it implies destruction of the thinking mind or suicide, than you have called him smart for that.

Yes, he's smart for that. The fact that a human being may acknowledge suicide does not make them stupid. Perhaps it goes against the morals in which you believe in, maybe a tad rebellious. If so (note: I say "if" because what I assume of what you meant may be wrong), then good. Be glad to have a rebellious human being instead of an obedient idiot. Rebelliousness is intelligence.

quote:

he is accountable for everything he wrote, past and present for it creates the sum of who he is.

So when I write my novels, which I create different characters that are not I, that's me? That makes no sense whatsoever.

quote:

Another funny thing is that you also implied that i don't have the free will to label someone, who has given me reasonable cause to, due to the fact i haven't been here long enough

Yes, you have free will to do so (as we all), but that does not mean you're right. I label you as arrogant, when perhaps you might be humble, see? I could even assume you're a 68 year old man at a computer, but I may be wrong. You may likely think I am idiot teenager who is wasting my life, but you're definetly wrong there.

We assume things, and that we can't control, but that doesn't mean we're magically right.