Does Free Will Exist?

[Douglas G]

This 15 minute video, Why Free Will Doesn’t Exist, was posted to me by an atheist I have been posting to on another forum. I do not agree with him that we do not have free will. Below is the gist of his argument. The first two paragraphs below are a summary of what is in the video and the last paragraph is this atheist’s personal opinion.

What makes free will an illusion is that the choice you make will always be either the choice to do what you most want to do (even when it overrides your wanting to do something else) or the choice you don't want to make but are forced to make.

We like to think that we have free will, that we could make choices other than the ones we make. However, free will -- the ability to have acted differently -- is an illusion. No matter what choice you ever made, you never really had the ability to have chosen differently.

Since free will is an illusion, it's also nothing but a lame excuse for certain problems that theists run into, for example, why a good god would allow evil to exist.​

Paul, a brilliant intellectual minded man was dogged in the pursuit of truth in a contrary world. This OP has a duplicitous purpose. The content is a claim. Its origin stands on a foundation of an avowed atheist, Sam Harris. And, distortions in reasoning abound in its content. Nonetheless, because its founding party, SH, imaginations befitting his train of thought are propagated as truth. The OP says,...

"Since free will is an illusion, it's also nothing but a lame excuse for certain problems that theists run into, for example, why a good god would allow evil to exist."

That's the objective, to reason away the truth in the service of a man's imaginings. God would not impose responsibility on man to judge without a man having the power of choice. All things work in context of his purpose. He uses what he wills of the entire range of human activity what suits his purpose. Man is entirely free to do as he pleases. This includes imagining what he will to suit his own imagining. This OP declares there is no free will. The gambits involved in the proposition are no more than a tangle of disembodied thought. Notwithstanding, merely because the string is entitled and functions on the premise most fall into place like a domino piece to empower the course of the discussion. Being responsible in life is not a theist cop out. God does not allow evil he created it. This is declared in his own word. Atheists delude themselves, attempting to be intellectual on what they'll have to account for. A record is being kept, Edgar Cayce proved that in vivid terms availing information stored on the esoteric level. There can be other views on people's experiences being maintained. Scripture speaks of God maintaining a record. Judgment requires free will. This idea that Sam Harris has floated is shear self deception, an art that's fully developed in the atheist mind.

 

[Trailblazer]

Paul, a brilliant intellectual minded man was dogged in the pursuit of truth in a contrary world. This OP has a duplicitous purpose. The content is a claim. Its origin stands on a foundation of an avowed atheist, Sam Harris. And, distortions in reasoning abound in its content. Nonetheless, because its founding party, SH, imaginations befitting his train of thought are propagated as truth. The OP says,...

"Since free will is an illusion, it's also nothing but a lame excuse for certain problems that theists run into, for example, why a good god would allow evil to exist."

That's the objective, to reason away the truth in the service of a man's imaginings. God would not impose responsibility on man to judge without a man having the power of choice. All things work in context of his purpose. He uses what he wills of the entire range of human activity what suits his purpose. Man is entirely free to do as he pleases. This includes imagining what he will to suit his own imagining. This OP declares there is no free will. The gambits involved in the proposition are no more than a tangle of disembodied thought. Notwithstanding, merely because the string is entitled and functions on the premise most fall into place like a domino piece to empower the course of the discussion. Being responsible in life is not a theist cop out. God does not allow evil he created it. This is declared in his own word. Atheists delude themselves, attempting to be intellectual on what they'll have to account for. A record is being kept, Edgar Cayce proved that in vivid terms availing information stored on the esoteric level. There can be other views on people's experiences being maintained. Scripture speaks of God maintaining a record. Judgment requires free will. This idea that Sam Harris has floated is shear self deception, an art that's fully developed in the atheist mind.

If there was a rating higher than "Winner" you would have received it. I would have "chosen" to give it to you by virtue of my own free will for pointing out the mental gymnastics that "some atheists" engage in to their ends.
The sad thing is that they actually believe their own blarney, sad for them because there is a God and we are all accountable to Him.

I was thinking to myself, leave it to a Christian this figure this out.
And then I just chuckled.

 

[samtonga43]

It is essentially the same thing.
It is the freedom to choose between two or more possible actions.

Thanks, Trailblazer. I just joined this forum and no one answered my question at first. I thought it must have been a stupid one. So thanks for choosing to reply.

 

[Koldo]

Paul, a brilliant intellectual minded man was dogged in the pursuit of truth in a contrary world. This OP has a duplicitous purpose. The content is a claim. Its origin stands on a foundation of an avowed atheist, Sam Harris. And, distortions in reasoning abound in its content. Nonetheless, because its founding party, SH, imaginations befitting his train of thought are propagated as truth. The OP says,...

"Since free will is an illusion, it's also nothing but a lame excuse for certain problems that theists run into, for example, why a good god would allow evil to exist."

That's the objective, to reason away the truth in the service of a man's imaginings. God would not impose responsibility on man to judge without a man having the power of choice. All things work in context of his purpose. He uses what he wills of the entire range of human activity what suits his purpose. Man is entirely free to do as he pleases. This includes imagining what he will to suit his own imagining. This OP declares there is no free will. The gambits involved in the proposition are no more than a tangle of disembodied thought. Notwithstanding, merely because the string is entitled and functions on the premise most fall into place like a domino piece to empower the course of the discussion. Being responsible in life is not a theist cop out. God does not allow evil he created it. This is declared in his own word. Atheists delude themselves, attempting to be intellectual on what they'll have to account for. A record is being kept, Edgar Cayce proved that in vivid terms availing information stored on the esoteric level. There can be other views on people's experiences being maintained. Scripture speaks of God maintaining a record. Judgment requires free will. This idea that Sam Harris has floated is shear self deception, an art that's fully developed in the atheist mind.

I am afraid having a bit of knowledge can be deceiving sometimes.
The debate about moral responsibility and free will can be dated, at least, all the way back to Hume and Kant.
Sam Harris would probably feel flattered by being held as the source though.

 

[Skwim]

Is free will the same as free choice?

Essentially it amounts to about the same thing, The will is the capacity to act decisively on one's desires. and free will being that capacity undirected by controlling influences.

Free choice would be putting the free will to work. However, In as much as free will does not exists, it's an illusion, neither does free choice. It too is an illusion. We do what we do, because we can do no differently.

BTW, welcome to RF. It's nice to see a new name.

.

 

[Trailblazer]

Essentially it amounts to about the same thing, The will is the capacity to act decisively on one's desires. and free will being that capacity undirected by controlling influences.

Free choice would be putting the free will to work. However, In as much as free will does not exists, it's an illusion, neither does free choice. It too is an illusion. We do what we do, because we can do no differently.

BTW, welcome to RF. It's nice to see a new name.

.

With all due respect, I just proved that is not true because today I CHOSE to leave a Christian forum. Nobody asked me to leave, I chose to leave because the owner put me on moderation for no legitimate reason and that is unjust.
I could have stayed and posted but I CHOSE not to.

The illusion is that we do not have a choice. In the past I would have gotten angry and tried to get the forum owner to understand how unjust he is. Now, I could not care less. The more we exercise our free will the more freedom we have. By contrast, thinking we have no choice is what keeps us as prisoners.

There is no better feeling in the world than exercising your free will.
That is God's gift to us in this world but we won't have it in the afterlife.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

If we acknowledge that there is no free will, mankind will automatically plunge into a dearth of criminal and immoral activity, claiming that they are not morally responsible for their actions.

 

[Trailblazer]

If we acknowledge that there is no free will, mankind will automatically plunge into a dearth of criminal and immoral activity, claiming that they are not morally responsible for their actions.

If most people did not believe that we have free will, mankind will automatically plunge into a dearth of criminal and immoral activity, claiming that they are not morally responsible for their actions.
Thank God most people believe we have free will.

That is one thing I like about the Jewish Faith, the basic principle of Reward and Punishment, and that every person has the choice of doing good or bad. When a person chooses good action he/she draws close to God and gains salvation through his/her own actions.

I read that on a website while I was researching what Judaism teaches about Adam and Eve.

 

[Skwim]

If we acknowledge that there is no free will, mankind will automatically plunge into a dearth of criminal and immoral activity, claiming that they are not morally responsible for their actions.

I can only suggest that you look up the definition of "dearth." But then again, maybe that's exactly what you mean. Hmmm. . . . . . . .

.

 

[osgart]

Choices of the heart or a person just falls into being who they are and there is no choosing otherwise.

Which is it?

I would have to say if you fall into being bad you are a slave to it.

You fall into being good and you have freedoms and choices.

And there is temporal falls, and eternal falls into who you are.

So really the only free will is to be a person of virtue.

But if a person really does the work of thinking through all that they could become and the causes and effects of each path they might act out of informed consent rather than falling into something because of ignorance. In that way there is freedom of forethought and perhaps people really do have the strength of character to choose who they become.

If a person wants to be love then they will do their all for the cause of love.

If a person wants to be hate without cause they will do everything they can to power up and eliminate anything they feel is worthless to themselves.

Then i suppose there are people who, live or die, do not take to either way and remain ambivalent.

But i believe people have the strength of character to decide who they become. And are fully responsible to that becoming.

For me i know i have made an eternal choice of becoming, and i will never desire to do otherwise. That is all the freedom i need. Even if i was the only one.

So Yoda says, once you start down the dark path forever will it control your destiny. But i have seen repentant people before.

 

[syo]

Yes that is true. So the desire of each of them are not equal when it comes to you choosing between them, and that "want" or desire is not something you have chosen based on your free will. If that makes sense? Something about the apple makes you want to eat it more than the turd, so its not really about you freely choosing whether you want to or not, but that your "wants" makes you choose the apple. Which is why the way you choose something is in reverse order of what you would expect. Your "wants" comes before your choice when you decide something. Which is what the guy in the video means with you not really having free will.

Nature has rules. We choose what the rules allow us. The apple is edible, the excrement are not edible, that's a rule.

 

[Nimos]

Nature has rules. We choose what the rules allow us. The apple is edible, the excrement are not edible, that's a rule.

Yes, but rules in this case suggest force. Which is not really free will as nature is forcing you, besides that you can eat excrement, its probably not healthy and can only imagine it tasting rather bad

To me, which I think might be the best argument against what the guy is saying. Is that his assumption might not be well enough thought out. If we keep using the example of the apple and the turd. And we know there is a difference in how much we want each of them.

Then we can ask ourselves how do we actually figure out what we want and dont want?
The only way to do that is through our senses as I see it, so you would end up having to make some sort of argument that our sense are not really part of us, regardless of whether these might be adjusted to nature in a certain way or not. Meaning our senses pick up the smell from a turd and our eyes can see it, these informations are then send to our brain, which process the information and we can then decide whether or not we want to eat it or not. So the system is closed within ourselves and simply reacting to outside information from the turd. To me you would be able to argue that our senses are a neutral agent which only "goal" is to help us survive or gather information, but even if "they" have a goal does that then natural follows that we don't have free will?

 

[samtonga43]

Essentially it amounts to about the same thing, The will is the capacity to act decisively on one's desires. and free will being that capacity undirected by controlling influences.

Free choice would be putting the free will to work. However, In as much as free will does not exists, it's an illusion, neither does free choice. It too is an illusion. We do what we do, because we can do no differently.

BTW, welcome to RF. It's nice to see a new name.

.

Thank you. It seems to me that, were I presented with strawberry ice-cream and mango ice-cream I will always choose mango.

Is this free choice or free will? And also, imagine that I am offered either a mango ice-cream or another mango ice-cream, exactly the same (I can only take one).

Will I freeze, unable to choose? How will I choose?

(Or maybe let them thaw, while I decide? )

 

[Jos]

Free will is just the ability to make choices. I think people make more out of it than it is. They overthink it. We all know that we make choices, such as if we are going to college, get married, have children, etc.

I think it is possible for those choices to have some level of determinism involved with them though since humans can't choose what they want.

 

[syo]

Then we can ask ourselves how do we actually figure out what we want and dont want?

We evaluate what we've got.

 

[Ponder This]

If you bone up on the free will issue you will find that the definition of free will as "the ability to have acted differently." is quite old and very common. And, it's not meant to be taken literally, but rather highlights the inability to freely choose: Back at point A, at 12:22:36 pm on February 2, 2017 you did X rather than Y. What the definition is simply pointing out is that doing Y would have been impossible. You had no choice. You HAD to do X. You did not "have the ability to have acted differently."

This is called an Appeal to Old Age Fallacy: the idea that if something is old, then is enhances the value or truth of the proposition in question.

The fact is: the definition he used conflates present action with past action. Perhaps the definition works, perhaps not. But the conflating past actions with present actions makes the definition, imo, a poor one. And so, I simply cannot accept that definition of Free Will without some further justification. I have pointed out the better definition for Free Will (a definition he acknowledges that people use). If he uses a different definition or resolves my complaint regarding the conflation of past and present actions, then it would be fine. If others want to use that as the definition, then they might be talking about something other than what I consider to be Free Will.

Except you missed his explanation of "wanting to" altogether. Please go back and rewatch it carefully

He does advise us to think carefully about his wanting argument. Overthinking a self-reflexive statement is pretty much how to trick yourself.

Not all, because the wanting to do A is not controlled by some other want (why are you proposing another wanting, anyway?) but by the antecedent events that culminated in the moment of wanting. You wanted to do A because a whole lot of controlling factors came together which made you want A. They insured you could do no differently than want A.

In what way are the wants of a person separate from that person?

 

[Skwim]

Thank you. It seems to me that, were I presented with strawberry ice-cream and mango ice-cream I will always choose mango.

Is this free choice or free will? And also, imagine that I am offered either a mango ice-cream or another mango ice-cream, exactly the same (I can only take one).

There would be a reason you picked mango over strawberry, and in effect that reason said to your will "don't pick strawberry, pick mango." And you have no control over how that reasoning works. It's determined by antecedent casual factors.

Will I freeze, unable to choose? How will I choose?

You won't choose. Choosing is an illusion.

.

 

[Skwim]

This is called an Appeal to Old Age Fallacy: the idea that if something is old, then is enhances the value or truth of the proposition in question.

Not when it points out a relevant truth. Of his statement that

"Free Will is the ability to have acted differently. What I mean by this is that if we were to wind back the clock in any situation, it was completely within the realm of possibility for you to have acted differently to the way that you actually did."​

You said "This is not an acceptable definition of Free Will." And your obtuse reasoning, "his definition relies on the ability to travel back in time," bringing up the subject of time, which brought to mind just how sustainable the definition has been.

The fact is: the definition he used conflates present action with past action.

Give an example.

. But the conflating past actions with present actions makes the definition, imo, a poor one.

Waiting for the example.

And so, I simply cannot accept that definition of Free Will without some further justification.

And that's fine.

I have pointed out the better definition for Free Will (a definition he acknowledges that people use). If he uses a different definition or resolves my complaint regarding the conflation of past and present actions, then it would be fine. If others want to use that as the definition, then they might be talking about something other than what I consider to be Free Will.

I don't recall him announcing another, "better," definition of free will. Please refresh my memory.

.

 

[Willamena]

If we acknowledge that there is no free will, mankind will automatically plunge into a dearth of criminal and immoral activity, claiming that they are not morally responsible for their actions.

Well, we wouldn't, because free will exists whether we acknowledge it or not.

 

[Ponder This]

You said "This is not an acceptable definition of Free Will." And your obtuse reasoning, "his definition relies on the ability to travel back in time," bringing up subject of time, brought to mind just how sustainable the definition has been.

Give an example.

"wind back the clock in any situation"

Go ahead. Do it! Wind the clock back right now to the point before I posted this reply! C'mon. What are you waiting for?

Waiting for the example.

Still waiting for you to turn back time... still hasn't happened yet. Hmm.

I don't recall him announcing another, "better," definition of free will. Please refresh my memory.

He didn't say the other definitions that people use are "better".
But he did the proper thing and gave a definition at the start of the video before arguments take place, despite there being a variety of different definitions to 'choose' from. That was very important: definition up front.

But... eventually...
He breaks down Free Will into one of two options: being forced or doing what you want and basically this is the point where he has presented the popular definition of Free Will. He goes on to present a clip of Matt Dillahunty where Matt presents the difference between jumping off stage and being pushed off stage. This is what I mean by his acknowledgement of other definitions for Free Will.