Is free will really an illusion?

[Sleeppy]

My definition would be 'Action without cause'.

Exactly. True spontaneity.

 

[jeager106]

Wouldn't that simply be 'the ability to make choices for yourself" ? Why would that indicate Free Will?

Dictionary definition of f.w.:

Wouldn't that simply be 'the ability to make choices for yourself" ? Why would that indicate Free Will?

Well how do you define f.w.????

One definition of f.w.
/ˌfrē ˈwil/ voluntarily, willingly, readily, freely, without reluctance

I think the ability to make choices for yourself pretty well sums up free will.

 

[EtuMalku]

The question should never be whether there are determinants.. We know the universe created the laws of physics (according to what the original singularity DEMANDED), and sustains them reliably. The question is whether or not true randomness exists, and whether or not any given will is random, i.e. truly free.

In other words, is anything in objective reality truly free from the constraints of some form of Law or Principle acting on them? Like gravity?
This idea takes the discussion in a completely different direction . . . interesting.

 

[George-ananda]

I have a question regarding this. Go ahead and tell me how I am wrong on it if I really am wrong. I personally don't think free will is an illusion because if you were to look at an unconscious organism such as a plant, then its acts are fixed. They are fixed towards survival. For example, the plant takes in sunlight, absorbs water, and all other processes of the plant are never random and are never against its own survival. They are fixed towards the survival of the plant.

So the same thing should hold true for the brain. If our acts and choices are predetermined, then they too should be fixed towards our survival and towards the survival (helping) of others as well. But I could choose to mindlessly perform a bunch of random acts right now such as frailing my arms up in the air. As a matter of fact, I could choose right now to perform acts that go against my own survival and the survival of others.

For a brain to perform such acts would imply that the brain is malfunctioning just as how I could also say that the plant performing random acts and acts against its own survival is malfunctioning as well. But the brain is not malfunctioning. It might of very well been my awareness right now of such acts that lead my brain into performing them. But still, the question remains. Why would the brain even perform such acts in the first place?

It shouldn't. So the very fact that I did perform them implies that free will exists and is not an illusion.

All actions can be explained under a materialist framework that includes how the brain operates, so the arguments you make don't really support Free Will over Determinism. I say this as one who does believe in Free Will but for different reasons than the ones you present here.

 

[EtuMalku]

Exactly. True spontaneity.

In my definition of Free Will, it is the liberation from the 'Will' imposed upon you from another.
As an example, certain religious indoctrination places feelings of guilt, shame, and reward into the person's unconsciousness. Even when that person makes a conscious decision to convert to another religion, this indoctrination pokes at them relentlessly, deep down inside they feel they are doing something wrong and there will retribution.

 

[crossfire]

I am of the mind that the true meaning behind 'free will' is not the ability to make decisions, but rather it should state; 'freedom from the will of another'
And Mankind has this ability despite the endless indoctrination of religion. Plants and animals are already free from the will of others, Mankind is the only organism that builds their own cages.

If you fly into a blind rage where your mind is overcome by that rage, and you smash one of your cherished possessions (something you wouldn't want to do) is that really free will? I would say that a huge part of free will is being in control of your mind, and not being overcome by emotions like blind rage that cause you to do what you don't want to do.

 

[EtuMalku]

If you fly into a blind rage where your mind is overcome by that rage, and you smash one of your cherished possessions (something you wouldn't want to do) is that really free will? I would say that a huge part of free will is being in control of your mind, and not being overcome by emotions like blind rage that cause you to do what you don't want to do.

Isn't that just being mature minded and rational? There is no imposed Will on you, causing this outburst.

 

[crossfire]

Isn't that just being mature minded and rational? There is no imposed Will on you, causing this outburst.

In that example, one is still a Slave to ones Anger. Slave does not equal free.

 

[EtuMalku]

In that example, one is still a Slave to ones Anger. Slave does not equal free.

I don't equate that with Free Will . . . but that's just me

 

[crossfire]

I don't equate that with Free Will . . . but that's just me

Fair enough.

 

[EtuMalku]

Fair enough.

and . . . your mileage may vary

 

[Covellite]

Choice/will is never free. Everything relies on that "first" singularity, before the Big Bang. Choices/wills don't spontaneously arise; they are determined according to the predetermination of that singularity.

Something created "first" singularity - call it God, if you feel like. It's simple, God is not a part of Big Bang and his force can always interfere. I believe he gave us ability (power) to use our free will and to become what we want, not to be fully predetermined. We can create anything and cause/effect logic is not that simple.

 

[Nous]

The ability of humans to act volitionally--i.e., to freely will the performance of certain bodily acts--is easily provable by our ability to predict (ceteris paribus) one’s own performance of these bodily acts, but inability to predict other people’s performance of such acts. There simply is no other explanation for our ability to perfectly predict one’s own voluntary acts while being unable correctly predict the same sorts of voluntary actions of another person.

We make such correct predictions of our own acts all the time, and we often rely on others to correctly predict their future acts. For instance, last year in purchasing a house, my husband and I took out a short-term loan, and, in doing so, had to agree to pay a set amount to the bank each month, by a certain day of each month. The bank, based on the fact the my husband and I each have an excellent history of paying what we promise to pay, believed that we would pay them the agreed amount each month. And we perfectly fulfilled our promise--just as the majority of people who take out loans pay the lender the set amount each month.

I cannot predict who will post another message on this thread (or on any other thread), nor what will be the content of another member’s posts. But I do predict that within less than 10 minutes but more than 2 minutes of posting this message, I will (certeris paribus) post another message on this thread that will contain nothing but the Czech words that translate to “free will” using this translator: http://imtranslator.net/translation/english/to-czech/translation/

And, even more particularly, I predict that I will write those Czech words in deep purple font (a color I've never before used to post a message here or anywhere else).

 

[Nous]

svobodná vůle

 

[Nous]

By the way, the thesis of determinism (“The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/ ) has been more than adequately proven false by the findings and theories of modern physics. Moreover, machine structure programming is detectable, and there is obviously no detectable biological (or extra-biological) structure that determines human’s trivial bodily movements (such as the act of typing the Czech words for “free will” in purple), and the fact the one can, in ordinary circumstances with great precision, predict one’s own voluntary bodily acts proves that such acts are not random.

 

[Sleeppy]

Something created "first" singularity - call it God, if you feel like. It's simple, God is not a part of Big Bang and his force can always interfere. I believe he gave us ability (power) to use our free will and to become what we want, not to be fully predetermined. We can create anything and cause/effect logic is not that simple.

Not even God has free will, my friend.

 

[FearGod]

Genes, to a degree, give us a propensity toward certain kinds of behaviour, but at the same time a lot of our behaviour is as the result of our experiences and influences throughout life as we go up. Human beings, like any other creature, are responding organisms. We respond to stimuli. If we get stung by a nettle, our brain remembers that nettle, and the next time we see it we keep clear of it (moreover: we warn others to do the same). But without being stung by the nettle or warned about it by someone else, we can't know to keep clear of it.

That's not to say that it's all predetermined. We can't know what stimuli we'll come into contact with, and the same stimuli wont produce the same results in different individuals. You could slap one girl, and she'll cry, you could slap another girl, and she'll kick you in the cobblers. The reaction to being slapped in the face would depend on all of the other stimuli they've had over their lives.

Many people's brains learnt that smoking is bad for health, but they still do.
The drug addicts' brains learnt that such path may destroy their own lives, but they still do.
The rapists' brains learnt that raping women is a bad thing and punishable by law, but still they do.
A naked woman for men's brain means sex, but the difference between human and animals is the morals
and that isn't a learning thing because there'e many animal men in this world even though they know that
forcing woman into sex is an awful thing but they do.

 

[Skwim]

Philosophically, free will is a term for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. In essence, freewill is commonly taken to mean "I could have done differently if I desired." But just how does this work? How does the mental operation that makes the choice to go left rather than right, work?

So far, the only operative agents in the universe that have been found to bring events into being are utter randomness and causation. Utter randomness is a total lack of causation. Events simply pop into being for absolutely no reason whatsoever. While seemingly preposterous, this reportedly occurs in quantum mechanics; subatomic particles sometimes behave as they do for absolutely no reason at all. While this is the prevailing notion in quantum physics, there are those who do question it, but assuming utter randomness does exist could it contribute to free will? Hardly. Any effect it had on the mental operation of choosing would render the choosing itself random. So utter randomness can be eliminated as the agent of choosing. This leaves us with causation as the explanation for our actions.

What we "choose" to do is caused.

Causation is a "because of this, then that" sort of operation---notice the "cause" in the word "because," it's telling. So, looking at our choice to go left rather than right, we have to ask ourselves what caused this choice? The common and immediate answer is, "our free will." Nice, but what is the will and what is it free of?

"The will is the faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions"
Source: Dictionary.com​

The "free" part indicates that no coercive factor was involved, but as we've seen, there was a causal agent operating within the will that, in effect, determined its action. It determined (coerced) the will to make the choice to go left rather than right. If there wasn't then why would the will choose what it did? So, where does this causal agent get its instructions that determine the action of the will? Well, we've ruled out randomness as a possibility, so it too must have had a causal agent that determined its action. And where does this casual agent get it's instructions? As is probably evident, it's turtles all the way down. What we choose to do is because of a successive series of cause/effect operations that ultimately led to one choosing to go left rather than right. But, could we have chosen differently? Chose to go right instead? Not unless there was something different in the chain of cause/effect events that led up to the moment of going one way or the other. Think of each cause/effect events as a series of numbers. Say its a series of six numbers of 1 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7, which equals 26. For the series to equal some other number one or more of the numbers would have to be different. But they weren't, they were 1 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7, so the final outcome has to be 26 and no other number. Same is true of the series of events leading up to moment of going one way or the other. They were what they were and not something else. This means it was inevitable that one chose to go left rather than right. One simply couldn't have gone right. One HAD TO go left.

So where is the meat in the notion of choosing? There isn't any. Choosing, and all of its cognates, are really empty terms that don't mean a thing---other in their most simplistic usage. We no more choose to go left than a rock chooses to sit where it does. While the will does control the mind as to its actions, what it does is not free, but controlled (determined) by everything the leads up to and impinges on any doing.

 

[Wynnie]

Lunchtime doubly so.

I see what you did there.

 

[Covellite]

The most important decisions we make between our lives. First, we decide to be born again, then we choose time and place, for different reasons. Usually, we want to be again in a situation we felt loved and to be among our "tribe". I still believe in "free will", but human free will (moderate version), not godlike omnipotence...