Does free will exist?

[zehydra]

snip

Dude, the more you respond the more you are setting yourself up to feel like an idiot after you read the article. You're coming in from a baseless angle.

There is no decision. It's instantaneous and it occurs before your conscious mind has even registered the fact it has occurred. 300ms before, to be specific.

That is not free will. You are not making the decision. That is not free will. That is not free will.

I don't know what the hell you're on about. Now you're trying to argue semantics and vague definitions on what the word decision means. Earlier you used an analogy about a computer. In a topic about FREE WILL... you used an analogy... about a computer. See what I mean? I'm honestly not interested buddy. The line of thinking you're going through is irrelevant, you're just trying to convince me that you can make "decisions" without free will. Because you think computers have choice and make decisions. Or you don't think that, you just say that they do.

Whatever. It's annoying now, let's just drop it.

Maybe in extreme circumstances, but there are situation in which the outcome is not clear and the person's action even to them is is no way "logical". For instance, even right now I know I should be studying as I have a shit ton of work coming up this week and next, but I am choosing to sit on the internet. So I'll give you that our ability to choose in life or death matters (eating, breathing, etc) is limited to non-existent, but that doesn't necessarily mean that our ability to make decisions as a whole is non-existent.

Do research.

It doesn't matter if you are deciding on a life and death matter or what kind of sandwich you are eating, your neurological impulses set it all out before you have even registered the fact you are thinking. There literally is no choice at all. It feels like there is, but there isn't.

We don't have free will. Read the article I linked earlier. Neuroscience has already confirmed this, and yet there are still people doubting it. Oh well, same goes for evolution and physics too.

"That is not free will. You are not making the decision. That is not free will. That is not free will. "

There is a decision being made. And it's being made by the equivalent of "you".

Edit: I should elaborate. "It's instantaneous and it occurs before your conscious mind has even registered the fact it has occurred. 300ms before, to be specific." so, there's a calculation that determines an outcome? Then that's the "decision-making" process. YOUR decision-making process, to be specific.

 

[quantumsoul]

We all have freedom of choice but not freedom from the consequences of that choice.

I could jab a pen into my hand right now but it would hurt and I have no desire to do so. So I won't but the choice is still there.

 

[SillyBear]

There is a decision being made. And it's being made by the equivalent of "you".

Jesus fucking christ.

What has this got to do with free will? Seriously?

According to your logic, computers make decisions. Therefore do computers have free will?

No?

EXACTLY. So why do you keep going through with this?

 

[zehydra]

There is a decision being made. And it's being made by the equivalent of "you".

Jesus fucking christ.

What has this got to do with free will? Seriously?

According to your logic, computers make decisions. Therefore do computers have free will?

No?

EXACTLY. So why do you keep going through with this?

Actually, the argument could be made that computers have free-will, if they had a will at all.

If computers were somehow conscientious, then yes they would have free will.

 

[Aprilgold]

WE DO, just some things are neccessary to survive.

I've always looked to the available option of apathy, inaction and eventual slow death as absolute proof of the existence of free will. After all

we can choose not to eat, for a time, but eventually have to if we want to survive.

^that right there is a choice, no matter how hard anyone wants to believe it isn't^

Like the above example.

 

[zehydra]

There is a decision being made. And it's being made by the equivalent of "you".

Jesus fucking christ.

What has this got to do with free will? Seriously?

According to your logic, computers make decisions. Therefore do computers have free will?

No?

EXACTLY. So why do you keep going through with this?

Actually, I have a question, what is your definition of free will?

 

[ultrapowerpie]

Behold, the ultimate answer to Free Will, by the lord and master Dogbert:

 

[SillyBear]

snip

I'm done .

This is just annoying. Read the fucking article, read more, then get back to me.

It's like trying to argue with a Christian who denies evolution without reading about it.

Thanks for the chat.

 

[arealperson]

I've read some of the arguments, but I'd just like to make a silly observation.

The deterministic argument kind of sounds like the argument of an old couple.

"Hey Mike, want to go out for a few beers?"

"Gee Pat, I did have a few plans, but it might be n- Sorry Pat, Science says no."

Edit: An abolitionist neuroscientist was asked if there was such thing as free will.

"Free will cannot exist, for it is held in the mind," it replied.

 

[zehydra]

snip

I'm done .

This is just annoying. Read the fucking article, read more, then get back to me.

It's like trying to argue with a Christian who denies evolution without reading about it.

Thanks for the chat.

I've read it now, and my position is more-or-less the same.

It seems he refutes a number of problems with "well then a chicken or a dog would have to have free will, and that he knows few people who think that they have free will".

The whole discussion seems pointless to me, when it all boils down to subjective definitions of "free will".

I think the best interpretation of "free will" under these circumstances is to contrast it with an opposite. Let's say "forced will". For instance, the author's thought experiment:

"Imagine that a mad scientist has developed a means of controlling the human brain at a distance. What would it be like to watch him send a person to and fro on the wings of her ?will?? Would there be even the slightest temptation to impute freedom to her? No. But this mad scientist is nothing more than causal determinism personified. What makes his existence so inimical to our notion of free will is that when we imagine him lurking behind a person?s thoughts and actions?tweaking electrical potentials, manufacturing neurotransmitters, regulating genes, etc.?we cannot help but let our notions of freedom and responsibility travel up the puppet?s strings to the hand that controls them."

In this scenario, it is clear that regardless of all the philosophy that has been debated thus far, that it is clear that the person whose brain is being controlled does not have free will. The difference of course, between a normal person, and a person who is being controlled by another being, is that the normal person's neural system is part of the person. A fundamental part of "free will" is the "self", and even if the notion of making a decision is an "illusion", then it is still the "self" making the decision, thus "free will".

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

If there is no such thing as free will, I cannot chose to accept your point, and therefore, you are wasting your time trying to convince me of such.

That's my view, anyways

 

[arealperson]

The ancient forces which were applied in making your view must have had a good sense of humour. That, or they were just ornery

 

[Wrists]

As much as it goes against my usual behaviour I'm going to comment on this already crowded thread. Forgive me if my point has been suggested before but I only read the first two pages, it's late here, what can I say?

I suppose this has got me thinking as to what point a mechanism (chemical or electrical or of any other sort) can only end with a single outcome. Since the specific path of a particle of gas cannot be accurately predicted thanks to our friend "The Random Walk"...though I suppose it could be theoretically, that said it is theoretically possible for me to spontaneously turn into a bowl of soup...on the moon....yesterday...anyway, I would say that it is even more difficult to predict the path of an electron or other energy transfer particle. Not only do they interact with particles around them they also interact with themselves and can do any one of a near infinite number of things for no discernible reason whatsoever.

Given this average randomness I'd say free will is quite likely to be present. If that seems like a sudden leap I understand. It's just that for every event that occurs let's say we have a 1 picosecond window where we can predict with almost 100% accuracy what will happen. Then we will know what will happen after that and so on and so on. However with time the reliability of the model would decrease and it would become impossible to predict the action of every single factor. Then we have to account for the fact that all of our measurements of these objects occur in probability densities. So let's say we know what path one electron will take 99.997% of the time, there exists the possibility that it won't do that.

I'm just reiterating people's points now. It's annoying, but it makes sense. I guess I'll use the summation that's been working for me as I write. Everything is predetermined...but it only gets to the stage where it can be viewed as predetermined while it is in the process of happening or after it has happened. Yes that voids the idea of "pre" but does it matter? No one's reading this far in the thread anyway. So, functionally free will must exist, mainly because of random elements such as self replicating organic molecules and more complex collections of molecules that form cells and colonies. Another leap, I know, but there is no way of predicting what will happen once your variables are no longer affected solely by charge and mass.

Also (and this has been annoying me for a while) Mr. Biscuit, "Ampage" is not a word.

 

[NightHawk21]

snip

I'm done .

This is just annoying. Read the fucking article, read more, then get back to me.

It's like trying to argue with a Christian who denies evolution without reading about it.

Thanks for the chat.

I've read it now, and my position is more-or-less the same.

It seems he refutes a number of problems with "well then a chicken or a dog would have to have free will, and that he knows few people who think that they have free will".

The whole discussion seems pointless to me, when it all boils down to subjective definitions of "free will".

I think the best interpretation of "free will" under these circumstances is to contrast it with an opposite. Let's say "forced will". For instance, the author's thought experiment:

"Imagine that a mad scientist has developed a means of controlling the human brain at a distance. What would it be like to watch him send a person to and fro on the wings of her ?will?? Would there be even the slightest temptation to impute freedom to her? No. But this mad scientist is nothing more than causal determinism personified. What makes his existence so inimical to our notion of free will is that when we imagine him lurking behind a person?s thoughts and actions?tweaking electrical potentials, manufacturing neurotransmitters, regulating genes, etc.?we cannot help but let our notions of freedom and responsibility travel up the puppet?s strings to the hand that controls them."

In this scenario, it is clear that regardless of all the philosophy that has been debated thus far, that it is clear that the person whose brain is being controlled does not have free will. The difference of course, between a normal person, and a person who is being controlled by another being, is that the normal person's neural system is part of the person. A fundamental part of "free will" is the "self", and even if the notion of making a decision is an "illusion", then it is still the "self" making the decision, thus "free will".

Makes sense to me.

Also to get back to Sillybear's point on computers, perhaps you should take some of your own advice and read more. A basic computer does not make decisions. If you knew anything about computer programming at all you would know that at its most basic a decision revolves around:

If x is something, do this. If x is not that, do something else. Yes you can make these circumstances long and very specific, but more or less every so called decision a computer makes can be broken up to something along those lines. Saying a computer decides to do something is like saying molecules choose to move down a concentration gradient or proteins choose how they will fold.

 

[Codeman90]

Asking this question is ridiculous, know why? Because the answer boils down to IT DOESN'T MATTER. Honestly, what in the world would change if everyone agreed "yeah there's no free will" then what? Does the everything change, does ANYTHING significant change? At all?

So why in the world would you argue semantics on this kind of level?

 

[Nieroshai]

Did you honestly have to post this? No, you could easily have, and been biologically driven to, gone to a porn site instead. So here we are choosing to tell you this is overdone.

 

[Xman490]

No, since we're affected by all sorts of stimuli that have different magnitudes. For example, I answer this because I'm bored at a quarter to 2 AM, but at a quarter to 2 PM, I would not bother because I would have homework, a class, or lunch to get to.

 

[Lady Nilstria]

You can "choose" to starve to death. But the atom that hits the receptor that sends the pulse to reject all food was set in motion a billion billion years ago when the big bang happened.

Honestly unless you are a fundamental christian and believe all science is lies i dont understand how you can believe in free will. How does "random" happen in your brain? DId that electrical charge in yoru brain just HAPPEN? Did you just create energy? Well done, all thermodynamics is a lie! Unless you render all physics moot, you cannot just change the way an atom bounces in your brain by magic, you cant create electricity from nothing in your mind to "choose" something.

I will be honest. This line of thinking boggles me.

You say the Big Bang, the ultimate example of something so astronomically improbable randomly happening, isn't random, whereas thoughts are? It makes no sense. John Polkinghorne said of the first three seconds of the universe, "The ratio between the expansion and contraction had to be so exact that it would be literally like taking aim on a 1 square inch target, 20 billion light years away and hitting it bullseye." Are you going to tell me Polkinghorne doesn't know what he's talking about? Your logic is flawed. Either everything is random from the beginning or it isn't. Something cannot be both random and orderly.

On to the fundamentalist Christian part. That statement proves how little you know of Biblical Christianity. Please do your research and read the Bible instead of listening to the people who aren't Christians but call themselves one. Baptists will say the gifts of tongues and the interpretation of tongues is a moot point, out of date. They are simply wrong. You are also simply wrong in saying Christians do not believe science. Polkinghorne is a Christian. Newton was a Christian. Please stop using incorrect generalities.

There are "Christians" out there who ignore huge chunks of the Bible. That is their own problem. It doesn't help their case in the least. Don't toss the baby out with the bathwater.

OT:

Free will is the ability to chose. How, what, why, and when you chose doesn't affect it. Predictability has nothing to do with it. Physics has nothing to do with it. Studying physics to understand free will is in itself a choice to understand choice. Free will exists, and while physics might be able to explain how the process actually works, it still doesn't explain WHY. Science can explain how, but not why, because the reason behind something is in and of itself not scientific, for meaning is abstract. Once science delves into the realm of philosophy, which takes over the field of "why", it ceases to be science.

Conclusion: Free will exists.