Does Free Will Exist?

[Ponder This]

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.​

Alex really makes a great video! Really fun to watch! I've watched a few of his videos and I've always found them entertaining. But... well, onto the meat of the matter (as I see it):

Alex begins by putting forth a definition for Free Will that I do not accept as the definition of Free Will.
He states:

"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."​

This is not an acceptable definition of Free Will. The simplest reason is that his definition relies on the ability to travel back in time. Traveling back in time would cause a Time Paradox. If Alex comes back with an acceptable solution to the Time Paradox of going back in time to change your decision, then maybe his definition will be worth considering. For those of you who wish to understand the Time Paradox Alex has unknowingly introduced, I recommend watching the movie "Time Machine" (2002) based on the book by H.G.Wells, in which a time traveler attempts to go back in time to save his wife from dying... something goes wrong and by the end of the movie you should understand the philosophical dilemma.

Definition of Will:
"the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action"

Definition of Free:
"not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes"

Definition of Free Will:
"the faculty, not under the control or in the power of another (able to act or be done as one wishes) by which a person decides on and initiates action"

Alex at 8:06:
"There are two reason you will ever do anything: because you want to or because you're forced to."

If you want to do it, then by definition it is Free Will ("able to act or be done as one wishes").
If you are forced to do it, then by definition it is not Free Will ("under the control or in the power of another").

Very Simple.

But he asserts that "You can't control your wants."
Isn't that a problem?

Well, no, not really. If "you want to control your wants", then it is a self-reflexive statement. The 'wants' that you 'want to control' are the 'wants' that you use to 'control your wants'.
To understand the logical problem with this, consider the following statement: "This statement is false." This introduces a logical dilemma from which you will find no logical escape. It's not sound to rely on a self-reflexive as your logical argument. I encourage the less faint of heart to examine Russell's Paradox (in mathematical set theory), which really gets at the heart of the problem with a self-reflexive statement from the point of view of logic.

TL;DR:
Alex uses a Time Paradox and a Self-Reflexive Statement to prove that you do not have Free Will... an interesting and entertaining video!

 

[Willamena]

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.​

Free will defined as "the ability to have acted differently" is very poorly defined. No one has the ability to have acted differently.* I do believe in free will, though.

Edit: It's all about perspective. Here's you, in the moment, faced with a choice, and you choose, you act. But "the ability to have acted differently" is worded from a future tense, one in which you have already chosen. No one has the ability to turn back the clock and choose again, so no, no one can choose differently. If free will is to be defined, it should be from the perspective from which it occurs.

*Defining free will as something impossible makes it easy to strike down.

 

[Willamena]

Going forward yes, in hindsight no.

Just so.

 

[Willamena]

Making choices has more to do with karma than free will, as we are pretty much directed by cause and effect anyways.

It's why I don't put much thought into the concept of free will.

Free will is the effect that has you as its cause.

 

[Koldo]

They both have choices. The police officer that arrested the criminal had a choice. He could have chose to overlook the crime. This happens all the time.

Ever got pulled over for speeding to just get a warning instead of a ticket? That's a choice the cop made. He could have gave you a ticket, because you broke the law, but instead he gave you a warning and told you to slow down.

Sure. A choice is made by figuring out what you want to do.

 

[Willamena]

It's the only way the sin and salvation of Christianity makes sense, so the Christian must champion it to retain the validity of his religion.

That's correct. Without the effect that has "you" as its cause, there would be no guilt, no repentance, no sin, and no personal salvation.

 

[Koldo]

I chose not to because I lived the first half of my life that way.

I chose to live the rest of my life peacefully.

But I am ignoring what I naturally want (coke and hookers), to live life differently.

So you chose that because you want to live peacefully now ? This is exactly what I am talking about.

Notice how you frame your 'wants'. You are thinking of you wanting to live peacefully as unnatural just because you have some other urge in you.

 

[Koldo]

An awareness that I can possess two contradictory wants at the same time. I can have short term wants and long term wants. And by being aware that my thoughts can and do influence my wants, I can consciously choose to influence my thoughts by consciously weighing the pros and cons of the particular wants that I have.

I don't disagree this process is possible. I just disagree it is possible without some former desire.

If you agree that you make choices based on what you want to do and that you can influence your choices by choosing on what you focus that means that if you want to focus on something you can choose to focus on that thing and then influence your decision making process further down the line. But notice that when you choose on what to focus you are already making a choice based on what you want. Do you see the issue ?

 

[Enoch07]

Sure. A choice is made by figuring out what you want to do.

Yes by choosing between several different options. It is possible to want more than one thing ya know. The ability to chose from these is free will. The inability to chose would be the lack of free will.

 

[Enoch07]

So you chose that because you want to live peacefully now ? This is exactly what I am talking about.

Notice how you frame your 'wants'. You are thinking of you wanting to live peacefully as unnatural just because you have some other urge in you.

I don't want to live peacefully. I want to raise hell and not go quietly into that night. But because this is how I lived the first half of my life. I now refuse to give in to drug and alchohol addiction for the rest of my life. I am taking a principled stand against my own wants. I am exercising my free will.

Yes by choosing between several different options. It is possible to want more than one thing ya know. The ability to chose from these is free will. The inability to chose would be the lack of free will.

 

[Koldo]

Yes by choosing between several different options. It is possible to want more than one thing ya know. The ability to chose from these is free will. The inability to chose would be the lack of free will.

I acknowledge it is possible to want multiple things, even contradictory things. Our choice happens on the basis of what we truly want the most at any given moment.

 

[Koldo]

I don't want to live peacefully. I want to raise hell and not go quietly into that night. But because this is how I lived the first half of my life. I now refuse to give in to drug and alchohol addiction for the rest of my life. I am taking a principled stand against my own wants. I am exercising my free will.

Why are you taking this principled stand ?
What do you want to achieve ?

 

[osgart]

And I can only ask, what caused you to chose to focus your thoughts on A rather than B? There has to be something that controls the direction your thinking goes or else your thinking is a completely random event. And whatever that controlling "something" happens to be it negates any freedom of the will. Your will was controlled by that "something."

.

.

Actually the will itself is doing the controlling, and its free to do that.

 

[Skwim]

Alex really makes a great video! Really fun to watch! I've watched a few of his videos and I've always found them entertaining. But... well, onto the meat of the matter (as I see it):

Alex begins by putting forth a definition for Free Will that I do not accept as the definition of Free Will.
He states:

"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."​

This is not an acceptable definition of Free Will. The simplest reason is that his definition relies on the ability to travel back in time. Traveling back in time would cause a Time Paradox.

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."

Alex at 8:06:
"There are two reason you will ever do anything: because you want to or because you're forced to."

If you want to do it, then by definition it is Free Will ("able to act or be done as one wishes").
If you are forced to do it, then by definition it is not Free Will ("under the control or in the power of another").

Very Simple.

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

But he asserts that "You can't control your wants."
Isn't that a problem?

Well, no, not really. If "you want to control your wants", then it is a self-reflexive statement.

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.

To understand the logical problem with this, consider the following statement: "This statement is false." This introduces a logical dilemma from which you will find no logical escape. It's not sound to rely on a self-reflexive as your logical argument. I encourage the less faint of heart to examine Russell's Paradox (in mathematical set theory), which really gets at the heart of the problem with a self-reflexive statement from the point of view of logic.

Way off the path and wholly irrelevant.


.

 

[Willamena]

But he asserts that "You can't control your wants."
Isn't that a problem?

Well, no, not really. If "you want to control your wants", then it is a self-reflexive statement. The 'wants' that you 'want to control' are the 'wants' that you use to 'control your wants'.
To understand the logical problem with this, consider the following statement: "This statement is false." This introduces a logical dilemma from which you will find no logical escape. It's not sound to rely on a self-reflexive as your logical argument. I encourage the less faint of heart to examine Russell's Paradox (in mathematical set theory), which really gets at the heart of the problem with a self-reflexive statement from the point of view of logic.

Just so. There is no "you" separate from your wants. They are you.

 

[QuestioningMind]

And I can only ask, what caused you to chose to focus your thoughts on A rather than B? There has to be something that controls the direction your thinking goes or else your thinking is a completely random event. And whatever that controlling "something" happens to be it negates any freedom of the will. Your will was controlled by that "something."

.

.

My awareness that I possess two different wants. That awareness enables me to direct my thinking in one direction or another. It's possible to be unaware of your thoughts, in which case it can be a matter of which thoughts you randomly happen to focus on. But the instant I become aware of my thoughts and become aware that my thoughts help to determine my wants I can consciously exert my will to influence my thoughts and wants.

It comes down to do you believe that your thoughts have complete control over you or do you possess any control whatsoever over your thoughts. If you believe the former then yes, there is no free will, but if you believe the latter then you agree that we have at least some degree of control over our wants.

 

[Skwim]

Actually the will itself is doing the controlling, and its free to do that.

How? How does the will freely control? Just saying that it's the will that does the controlling is meaningless without an explanation. So, how does the will freely operate in order to arrive at a conclusion?

.

.

 

[osgart]

Nature and nurture.


BINGO!


Please read my previous posts.


I suppose so. I would have had no choice in the matter.

ob·jec·tiv·i·ty
/ˌäbjekˈtivədē/
noun
noun: objectivity
the quality of being objective.​

No.


As an Illusion, I don't give it many qualities.


Free will is an illusion.


Controlling influences


Yes.


Don't know what you mean by "free within their path of virtue."


This makes no sense. Please rephrase.

.

A person that is motivated entirely of their own doing is free of will and not caused by any other factors, only their will.

A person that is satisfied with their own will is content with the will they have and does not desire to change it. I am quite pleased with my will for everything, and everybody, and since my will is peaceful and sufficient of itself I am free in my will.

Free will is a will that is just in its intentions.

My will itself is not controlled by external factors. It is my will and i have chosen it for myself.

 

[Willamena]

The concept of free will took a bit of a dint with the advent of the unconscious mind with Freud. If there’s anything we got from Freud, is how the unconscious mind influences and even controls the conscious mind and it’s impossible to ever completely know the unconscious mind. Therefore, to be controlled or influenced by thoughts you’re not aware of puts a bit of a handicap on free will.

If you believe in unconscious mind...

 

[The Reverend Bob]

I have only been here a short while but I notice this question comes up a lot, I think people are compelled to ask it