Is Free Will Possible?

[GLo Jones]

Oh god not this bullshit again.

Look, just because we are the product of our experiences DOES NOT mean we do not have free will.

You can still decide and choose, you always have and that is also what has shaped you into what you are today.

Flawless victory delusion..

Fixed that for you.

Free will is an illusion (sorry, I'm a hopeless determinist). Our responses (everything we do) are shaped by inside and outside influences. Our outside influences consist of everything out body senses. Our inside influences consist of our mental reactions to that sensory input. Those reactions are shaped by our upbringing, both nature (our genes) and nurture (our past experiences).

Free will is an almost perfect illusion, and I would say it's practically impossible to live without acknowledging that illusion, but still we are all hopeless automatons reacting to our environment. And I like it that way.

This sums up my view nicely. There is no situation/example where this cannot be accurately applied.

Prove it. Just saying it's so doesn't make it so. Evidence is required.

You mean the evidence I presented in the form of logic posted by zala-taichou?

There is nothing we will ever do that isn't motivated by a mixture of our genes, environment, upbringing, conditioning, instincts, and current requirements (eg. Thirst). Everything we do has a cause, every choice we make has a cause, and all these causes are ultimately out of our control.

 

[Deacon Cole]

We are all chemical robots.

 

[Lyx]

Determinism and Anti-Determinism ("free will") are both logically impossible. The century old debate about it, basically is like two children classifying time and space into "cause" and "effect", and then fighting over "who came first" - without realizing, that not only can neither be "first", but more importantly that what is assigned a "cause" and what is assigned an "effect" is just a matter of context (viewpoint).

The key to understand this, is to realize the following: The only sensible purpose of the concept "causality", is to bring events into an order. Nothing else. It's just a (misleading) model to explain in which time-order events are connected - everything else, including the assocation of "cause" with "power/domination" is just propaganda.

If this too didn't result in a "click" in your head, then here are some hints:

1. You're too focussed on master-slave games - on defining who owns and controls whom. Perhaps you may get further in your thoughts, if you'd forget about those domination games, and instead just try to understand how things are connected - how stuff works.

2. You're not an impulse-driven insect, so why do you model yourself as an insect in your thoughts?

3. If you were given the ability to consider every infobit you want, before making a decision, would you call that "free"? Okay, now what if you'd do this automatically anyways - would that make any difference? If you automatically do whatever you want, do you then still do whatever you want?

 

[Biosophilogical]

I think you are defining free will as the ability to make decisions as though there were ever any choice in the matter. But if you look at free will as the desire to do things and think things, then that can and does co-exist with deterministic theory. So basically, according to determinstic theory, there is no choice, but there is free will.

 

[Lyx]

That depends on how one defines "choice".

If we mean "choice" as in "You can consider the available info, and then do what you'd like based on that info", then choice exists.

But if we define "choice" as some impossibility... that at a certain time two different things could have happened, then there is no choice. This is impossible, because it would mean that the past does not matter. But if the past would not matter, you wouldn't have ANY information (actually, you wouldn't even exist), and therefore couldn't efficiently decide (so, you'd actually be totally "unfree").

Stuff did happen, you did get certain info - thats why you can now act according to that info. This does not mean that someone else (who?!?) is acting in place of you. It just means that right now you feel as you do feel, you know what you do know, you want what you do want, and this matters - it's what you call "I".

 

[blazearmoru]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kCxn7lHnBc&feature=grec_index

there! D:<

 

[Cazza]

Free will means to do what you want. Not what you believe. So I believe something is right I do it. That it free will. Just because factors made me believe that doesn't mean I don't have free will.

 

[Strixandstones]

Can't get enough of the running tapir avatar

OT: We're as free as we possibly could be, shaped by internal and external stimuli but never completely determined (due to the chaotic nature of the universe).

 

[Jedoro]

Influence and outright control are two different things; as long as we have the ability to make a choice, we ultimately possess free will. Someone could influence me all day, outright and/or subliminally, to do something, but in the end I could resist all of the influence and not do it because I still retain the option.

 

[YouCallMeNighthawk]

We have and always will have free will! I made my own mind up to smoke, to drink, to go work, to cross the road etc.

 

[dedxsed]

not on this site! well, not if you dont want to be hated. for example, i dont like bioshock. good setting, crap gameplay. now all the fanboys will come rushing to its aid about how im wrong about my opinion. how my free will is wrong. of course we have have it, just that if you use it to be free, a lot of people will hate you for it

 

[SimuLord]

I've got plenty of belief in my own free will, but that doesn't mean I'm going to tempt the gods.

 

[Sebenko]

Free will?

Here's an answer for ya: Who cares.

I'm happy enough with my perception of my own free will. Does it really exist? I don't care.

 

[Lyx]

Everything is made up of particles (including our brain). Every particle is governed by the laws of the universe. Therefore, the laws of the universe control every thought, every action, every emotion.

There are two little problems with that:

1. No one has ever seen those "particles". Until today, they are just a model, and scientists are fighting to keep a straight face at calling them particles, when all those supposed "points" move AND look like liquids.

2. With your reductionist approach, you're creating a mind/body gap and simultaneusly imply that both are the same - a contradiction. If those "particles" are not the same as "thoughts, emotions, etc", then you'd provide no evidence why those "particles" would command (dominate) those thoughts, feelings etc. But if you'd argue that those "particles" and those "thoughts, emotions" are the same thing, then there would be no difference between saying "your thoughts, emotions etc define the particles" and "the particles define the thoughts, emotions" - because both would be different models for the same thing. Surely you agree that for any appeal to truth, two models may not come to conflicting conclusions about the very same things, yes?

 

[the rye]

Ahhh the free will debate, i having studied determinism am under the belife that free will does not exist. i think anything else i say has already been said on this forum.

 

[Lyx]

2. How are your thoughts created? Via your brain.
What causes your brain to create those thoughts? Chemicals in your brain.
What are those chemicals made up of? Matter.
That matter is governed by the laws of the universe, it will react/move/transform/whatever according to the laws of the universe. So, if those laws control how matter acts, how can we have free will when we are simply acting/thinking/feeling based on the result of matter being manipulated by the laws of the universe.

By your matter "particles" not being isolated "islands". Sure, you could argue that a sea ultimately only consists of waterdrops, or even go all the way to idiocy by resolving them down to.... conceptual points that have no size, but a density (mass) and... rotation, AND can be at multiple places at the same time. If logic were a person, i guess it would be hitting its head against a wall at that "point".

But what i really wanted to get at: Nice, so now you've gotten a nice tunnel view by setting your binoculars to maximum zoom.... problem is: You've lost view of the sea. And that sea is there. In fact, you cannot even observe your beloved "particles" without them being affected by everything else. No matter what you do, the model you come up with will not describe particles, but instead the behaviour of particles in a system. Sure, you can act "as if" it were a model about particles - one can claim anything - but that wont change that you never got information about particles. Everything was based on interactions on a fluid spectrum of scale.

Or to put it more simple:
1. Not looking at something, doesn't make that something stop to exist.

2. Microcosm and Macrocosm are not isolated from each other. You may choose to only look at one of both at a time, but what you see always will be the combined aspects of both. Or in short: Micro does not dominate Macro. Macro does not dominate Micro. Scale just is about scale - not about master/slave games.

3. The choice to think introverted - to adore points, to be obsessed with micro to the point, where it is implied that "god" is in the micro and commands macro around - has nothing to do with nature. It is plain arbitrary choice.

It's the same as what i said earlier: If you claim that micro and macro describe different "things", then you lack any evidence. But if you claim that both are just different scales of the same thing, then "macro defines micro" is just as valid, as "micro defines macro" *because both are the same thing".

P.S.: You may now say that even ignoring the micro/macro shism, it is evident that the world works according to certain mechanics, and that therefore peoples actions were "commanded" by those mechanics. This too however would again imply a false distinction: If "I" am not part of the "world mechanics", then there is no evidence - its just a claim. But if "I" am part of the "World", then I too am those "mechanics", and the "mechanics" are "I". There is no "who came first"... this implied dualism is a disfunctional invention that doesn't match observation.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

What? We always have free will, it is what makes you YOU, I mean I chose to do everything in my life, and that led up to now!

 

[Daden]

Interesting responses all around! I wasn't expecting as much activity from the "It doesn't matter!" and "Both of you are wrong!" camps, so I'll add my thoughts on these.

It Doesn't Matter:

You're partially right, I think. The "perfect illusion" description was particularly apt because even if our actions are 100% predetermined by external and internal forces coming together, it sure FEELS like we are making choices.

Where we differ, though, is that the issue DOES matter to many people who make decisions that affect us, which can be problematic.

For example, fields like psychiatry and psychology have to fight upward battles to broaden the definition of addiction (even though they have met the burden of proof with scientific data) because some people (even professionals in the field) will not accept that behaviors other than drug use are determined by chemical processes in the same areas of the brain. People choose to throw all their money away gambling because they're stupid, right?

Further, every day, some politician riles up the masses by asserting their voters are good, hard-working folk while the poor are lazy parasites who feed off of the system. Situation and context are for intellectual elitists, of course!

Whether you agree with the above examples or not, I think you can see that the belief in free will at least affects you indirectly, and that it does matter.

You're Both Wrong:

This is a supernatural position, as you assert that cause and effect are simply illusory and beside the point. If cause and effect are illusions, though, all of science becomes null and void, as these concepts are at its very core.

Models, constructs, and theories- these are all gross oversimplifications of the mechanisms of an extremely complex universe; however, the likelihood that they are ultimately inaccurate does NOT diminish their utility.

Science isn?t a view, but, rather, a method. All theories are tentative but progressive, building upon previous discoveries and failures. Just because macro and micro scales are not easily reconciled does not mean they CANNOT be. Quite frankly, nitpicking areas where understanding in science is limited and then claiming that one?s thought experiment must be correct as a result is one of the oldest tricks in the anti-science book.

 

[Unesh52]

Hey, what the fuck? I posted about this not a month ago and no one responded

I see how it is... you guys are racist. Just cause I'm not a robot doesn't mean I can't have opinions!

OT: [small]I don't really care anymore, but...[/small] I agree completely with the OP. All the circumstances of the entire universe culminate to create every situation you'll ever be in and determine what decisions you'll make. The quantum mechanics thing, as I understand it, actually creates multiple universes with different outcomes. It doesn't have anything to do with what you "choose," in fact the universe still "chooses" for you, only it chooses all things possible all at once, and creates multiple realities for those choices to effect.

But I don't have any authority on the subject so... make of that what you will.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

You pays your money and you takes your choice.