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Do you Think we have Free Will

Do you Think we have Free Will


  • Total voters
    59

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
No, I don't believe that humans have free will as defined in the OP, nor have I found any definition of "free will" to be coherent in the first place.

I also disagree with the definition in the OP because I don't think a decision is necessarily completely constrained (i.e., exclusive of free will) if it is fully random or fully determined by past events. Still, I don't believe in any of the definitions of free will that I have encountered, hence voting no.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Which is precisely why I’m not a Calvinist. Well, that’s not the only reason, but as good a one as any.

As far as the future is concerned, the closest we can come to knowing it, is to assess as accurately as possible, the probability of this or that outcome or eventuality.
I think it's interesting though.

Many christians are so full of this whole "free will" aspect, yet simultanously they think the future is written in stone.
This is, btw, not at all limited to just calvinists.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Sounds like you failed miserably in your dishonest trickery though, as you could find no atheist who would agree to your false dichotomy claims here.
How can you accuse me for being dishonest, if you dont belive in free will?

To be dishonest means that I had he option of being honest, but descided not to take that option (free will in other words)

Post #76: Do you Think we have Free Will
You grant the point that it's a false dichotomy and grant that there are other alternatives.
My comment was written before you made the correction

Post #78 (so AFTER you granted the point): Do you Think we have Free Will
@9-10ths_Penguin points out the exact same false dichotomy...
Post #80: Do you Think we have Free Will
You reply to @9-10ths_Penguin by asking what other alternatives there are, as if you don't know of any


In tha post I am granting that there are more than 2 options.

So your accusation of me making the same mistake after being corrected is void.....an apology is expected
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
I think you’re missing something here; if decisions, evaluations, actions and outcomes are predetermined, then processes cease to have any meaning, as do methodologies like critical thinking, and concepts like “useful”.

To you maybe. Not to me though.

Indeed, if the future is already written, then even the flow of time is an illusion, and cause and effect becomes mere correlation.

Can you elaborate?
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Explained in the reference i provided.

An added problem, which I believe I previously mention is our behavior and nature is natural and nature is not Hard
deterministic. The determinism of nature os that the outcomes of cause and effect events is fractal and is limited in range of possible choices. This is reflected in the human decision making process.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by 'nature is not hard deterministic'? Exemplify.
 

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
Can you elaborate?

I think a choice could theoretically be free if it is driven by a self-causing property of consciousness or the brain, whereby that property would give rise to free choice (i.e., the ability to make an externally unconstrained choice between two or more available options) while at the same time not being exclusive of full randomness or full determinism.

I see no evidence to conclude that such a property exists, however, and the above is just a bare-bones explanation of my viewpoint, so it doesn't cover the entirety of what I believe about this aspect of free will (or lack thereof).
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
I think a choice could theoretically be free if it is driven by a self-causing property of consciousness or the brain,

Self-causing or self-caused? Can you elaborate on what you mean by this term specifically?

whereby that property would give rise to free choice (i.e., the ability to make an externally unconstrained choice between two or more available options) while at the same time not being exclusive of full randomness or full determinism.

I see no evidence to conclude that such a property exists, however, and the above is just a bare-bones explanation of my viewpoint, so it doesn't cover the entirety of what I believe about this aspect of free will (or lack thereof).

Wouldn't either randomness or determinism be the constraint though?
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Yes, I know. Mine is.
For context.....You said that your world view is restricted to things that can be tested empirically.....

That is nonsense.... you cant show empirically that:
1 You exist

2 That you live in a physical world (andnot in the matrix)

3 that you are awake , and not dreaming

Etc.

All you have is your intuition and some philosophical arguments... but you still grant these things despite the fact that you cant prove them empirically.

Disagree. You seem to think that absent free will, other mental functions must be absent as well, such as reason and empirical inquiry.
Yes, if there is no free will, by definition there is no reason nor critical thinking, nor way to determine truths.

You are just a robot preprogramed to think that the universe is 13.8B years old.... while a YEC is a robot preprogramed to think thst the world is 6,000yo.

The problem is that without free will there is no way to test who is correct . both where programed to think that the evidence is on their side.....
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
How can you accuse me for being dishonest, if you dont belive in free will?

Now who's being dishonest? Where and when have I ever said that I don't believe in free will?


To be dishonest means that I had he option of being honest, but descided not to take that option (free will in other words)

Indeed. From where I sit, it looks like you do this often. And I'm not the only one to notice it either.

My comment was written before you made the correction

You questioning the comment by @9-10ths_Penguin was done after you granted that exact same point to me.


In tha post I am granting that there are more than 2 options.

Is that why you are asking what the other options are?
See... this is one of these instances where you seem to have the options of being honest and then decide not to take that option.

It's right there for all of us to read.

When you say (exact quote) "Ok what other alternative do you propose? And which one would you pick?", that doesn't sound like granting there are other options. Instead, that rather sounds like claiming ignorance of other options since you are asking what other options he thinks there are.
If you would grant other options, you wouldn't have to ask.

So your accusation of me making the same mistake after being corrected is void.....

Nope. It seems right on the money. It's right there for all of us to read. Including you.
It's right there in the very links you yourself are quoting.
What nerve you have.

an apology is expected

I never apologize for telling the truth.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
For context.....You said that your world view is restricted to things that can be tested empirically.....

That is nonsense.... you cant show empirically that:
1 You exist

2 That you live in a physical world (andnot in the matrix)

3 that you are awake , and not dreaming

Etc.

Useless solipsism-style nonsense.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Just some general comments on free will as a concept that I sometimes think about.

It occurs to me that, if we viewed humans simply as slightly more intelligent animals, functioning on instinct and within the parameters of nature, then I doubt that "free will" would be that much of an issue or point of contention. Animals have free will, just as cats can be observed preferring one brand of cat food over another, or rats might choose one or another path in a maze. That doesn't mean that animals aren't held accountable, since dangerous animals are removed from society where they can't harm anyone - just as we do with dangerous humans.

The only reason why free will is argued over so passionately is because it's used as a justification and an explanation for the problem of evil. Free will presupposes the existence of good and evil, and is oftentimes presented in the context of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving god. If people didn't claim that God was all good and all loving, then again, free will would not be an issue.

Basically, the whole "free will" argument is rooted in religious propaganda. It's like how some ardently patriotic Americans might be, the ones who claim that America is blessed and that America is nothing but goodness and righteousness. People might counter that and say "Well, if America is so good, then why do they do X, Y, and Z?" The counter-argument is perfect: "It's not our fault! It's other countries exercising their free will. They're the ones doing evil, not us!"

The other side of the argument is that it also implies that God has no free will, since the assumption is that God is always good in every and all circumstances. This view implies that God is incapable of doing any evil whatsoever, since God is always good.
 

muhammad_isa

Veteran Member
Many christians are so full of this whole "free will" aspect, yet simultanously they think the future is written in stone.
This is, btw, not at all limited to just calvinists.
True .. many Muslims also, think that the future is "set in stone", and assume that G-d "sets it".
The correct belief in my understanding, is that the future is INDEED "set in stone", just as the past is..
..but it is not G-d, per se, that sets it (G-d is not a person) .. it is more complex than that.
The future is set by our own actions, as well as by "acts of God".

Many people can't understand how something can be known, if it hasn't happened yet.
That is because we perceive 'time' as being absolute, whereas it is only our perception.
G-d's perception is different .. i.e. time is relative to the observer .. yet G-d is not PART
of this physical universe.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
if decisions, evaluations, actions and outcomes are predetermined, then processes cease to have any meaning, as do methodologies like critical thinking, and concepts like “useful”
This an appeal to consequences fallacy: "a fallacy in which someone concludes that a statement, belief, or hypothesis must be true (or false) simply because it would lead to desirable (or undesirable) consequences if it were so." It's not an argument that something is untrue or impossible, which is what a rebuttal of a claim needs to be to be more than hand-waving. What you're saying here is that if there is no free will, then critical thinking is just another manifestation of nature or that when one calls something useful he is saying nothing. I've already told that I disagree, but I can stipulate to that and say that if that's how reality is, then that's how it is however unsettling and disorienting confronting that might be.
you’ve surprised me as I didn’t have you down for an anti-realist.
Isn't it you that is the antirealist? You're insisting on a version of reality based on an intuition that can't be confirmed. I'm open to another possibility, one that I've become accustomed to as apparently have many others in this and related threads, who also say that they believe that will is not or might not be free.
you cant show empirically that:
1 You exist
2 That you live in a physical world (andnot in the matrix)
3 that you are awake , and not dreaming
Agreed, but I don't need to. I only need to know the rules of interpreting evidence properly which allow me to predict future outcomes accurately or more accurately.

Did you see these words in this thread written to a different poster? :

"It's exactly the same regarding the question of whether all of experience is an illusion, not just free will. Suppose you somehow learned for an undeniable, iron-clad fact that there was no world outside of your consciousness corresponding to what you experience, that perhaps you are a brain in a vat after all or in some kind of matrix. OK, now that you've had a chance to get over the shock and assimilate and accept the truth of the idea, what are you going to do differently? You now know that what looks like your finger isn't real, and neither is that burning candle, so you will the finger into the flame knowing that no such thing actually exists or is happening, and you feel the pain of fire anyway. Are you going to do that again? No. It's not like you would have a choice if you also lacked free will. NOTHING CHANGES, and this free will matter is the same. Realizing that free will is or might be an illusion changes nothing about how I go on living my life, because as with fingers and flames, what worked before still works following these kinds of revelations."

We don't need to know what really lies beyond the theater of consciousness to navigate and more or less manage the parade of sensations, feelings, memories, urges, intuitions, etc. that comprise conscious experience. The value of belief is to inform decisions and drive actions. Actions then influence events in the external world, or so it appears, and those effects lead to objective consequences.

To reiterate, we should expect similar decisions made under similar circumstances to lead to similar outcomes. The measure of a true or false proposition lies in its capacity to produce expected results. If an idea is true, it can be used to generate predictable consequences, and different ones if that idea turned out to be false. In other words, the ultimate measure of a true proposition is the capacity to inform decisions under the expectation of desirable consequences regardless of what's on the other side of the curtain.

All we need to know is that we have desires and preferences, we make decisions, and we experience sensory perceptions of outcomes. If a man has belief B that some action A will produce desired result D, if B is true, then doing A will achieve D. If A fails to achieve D, then B is false. Either you agree that truth should be measured by its capacity to inform decisions and produce results or you don't.

This is another of those ideas such as free will possibly being an illusion that is a little unsettling when initially countenanced, but with time, becomes acceptable. I live with both every day, and live the same life I did before I accepted those ideas for the reasons given above. The rules work whatever the ultimate nature of reality is. If our lives are foreordained, and one deserves no credit or blame for how they unfold, then all I can say is that I'm happy to have lived this one and am having this enjoyable discussion whatever is responsible.

I'm not asking you or any other Abrahamic theist to join me. Why should you? You have a large investment in the belief that the god of Abraham exists, is honest and benevolent, created our world, and granted man free will the exercise of which can lead to damnation or salvation. If you buy into even the possibility that reality is very different from that, you're on the slippery slope to skepticism, and I'm sure that you're well aware that many religious teachers exhort the faithful to never entertain such thoughts, that they're blasphemous, come from Satan, and can lead to personal destruction.

It's red pill blue pill stuff. Which do you prefer - a comfortable and comforting narrative even if incorrect, or something somewhat unsettling if it happens to be the truth? I chose the latter. Or something chose it for me. It's all good, whatever is actually the case.
if there is no free will, by definition there is no reason nor critical thinking, nor way to determine truths.
Not at all. It just means that those process occur without being freely willed.
You are just a robot preprogramed to think that the universe is 13.8B years old.... while a YEC is a robot preprogramed to think thst the world is 6,000yo.
Yes, that might be the case, and if it is, I'm OK with it. The believer needs to continue resisting that idea, but his argument is yet another fallacy of consequence (described above). The statement above must be denied, because if it isn't, the consequences would be unacceptable.
The problem is that without free will there is no way to test who is correct .
Disagree. The methods we have for deciding such things don't require that free will be involved, which is why we can program machines to reproduce that method. Suppose free will is an illusion. You and I robotically add the same column of numbers and come to two different sums as was always foreordained. You seem to be suggesting that those robots have no means to decide which was correct. Sure they do.
 
Last edited:

wellwisher

Well-Known Member
* In this context Free Will is defined as the ability to make choices that are not fully determined by past events nor fully random

I know this is a hard question and that nobody claims to have 100% certanity..... but in your opinion what is more likely to be true?... do you think humans have the aility to make choices ?
I for one, have a lot a new and original ideas, which precludes a few random events or ideas connected to past events; no precedent, beyond my earlier original thinking. I am a living example, at least in some areas.

What I found is free will is not something you are born with, but rather it has to be developed, like any skill; character. The paradox of free will is you need free will to be able to jump start, expand and develop free will. One is also not born with character. Character is about making choices, at the cross roads of life's events, so they conform to positive thinking and doing good. This is not easy to do all the time, since we are social animals and the herd often wants to go another way; fads. You may still need the herd, since you do not wish to be alone. Character development is the foundation of free will. Dictators and Socialism hate religion due to character and free will development provide immunization from lies and negative group think.

Today there is more propaganda emphasis on the shallow surface like race, sex, DEI etc..This does not require you develop character or free will. All you need to do is repeat the mantra of the herd, which is about sacrificing free will for force conformity. Free will would allow a choice to use pronouns in school or not. Herd thinking does not tolerate such freedom.

Dr Martin Luther King's speech, " I have a dream", was about people being judged by their character and not by the color of the skin. It was about judging people by their developed character and free will; their life of choices doing the right things, instead of just clan up and sacrifice your will power for the collective mentality of a shallow clan identity politics; Political Left.

It is hard to force conform people of character, to the needs of a zombie army. This is why dictators try to eliminate people of character, less others learn about the freedom of free will. Modern Psychology often denies free will since more money is made if people lack free will and are at the mercy of the whims of the gods and science herd consensus; group think with forced conformity.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Can you elaborate on what you mean by 'nature is not hard deterministic'? Exemplify.
simply, Hard determinism is like Newtonian clock woek mechanist world where one cause and effect event has one outcome. In this scenario we do not have Free Will,
 
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