we have no free will - prove me wrong!

[sayak83]

OK, what do I mean by free will?

I would define it as the ability to perform mental functions (e.g. agency, creativity, decision making) in a manner that is not determined by things that have already happened, i.e. the past

I believe this is impossible, hence I don’t believe in free will

I would define free will as being consciously aware of multiple courses of action, having the ability to consciously reflect on the approapriateness of each alternatives, and then acting on one of them based on those reflections.
Your definition is somewhat trivial. Even the most elementary processes in the universe (as happens in the subatomic realm) are not fully determined by the past events. That is the fundamental nature of the world....as we have discovered through Quantum Physics. Fully deterministic processes are as rare as a blue moon. So why would the mind be constrained in such a way?

 

[dianaiad]

OK, what do I mean by free will?

I would define it as the ability to perform mental functions (e.g. agency, creativity, decision making) in a manner that is not determined by things that have already happened, i.e. the past

I believe this is impossible, hence I don’t believe in free will

Well, if you define the term in such a way as to agree with your objections, it's easy to prove your point. However, 'free will' isn't about being able to act without outside influences. "Free Will" is about being able to choose between options actually available to us. Under your definition, 'free will' might well include the ability to decide to be flying around, 10,000 feet up, under one's own flapping arms without any mechanical aids.

In reality, 'free will' is about being able to judge between influences and desires in order to pick among the logical and possible options in front of us.

In fact, if there were no free will, no robber or kidnapper would have to hold a banker's family hostage in order to force him to rob his own bank. A kidnapper wouldn't have to steal away a family member in order to coerce someone to pay money to get that family member back.

Even so, the choice is there; does the banker or relative have the choice between rob...and not rob, pay the ransom, or not pay? Of course s/he does. If s/he didn't, there would be no need to, literally, hold a gun to the heads of the people being threatened if s/he makes the wrong (not paying) choice.

...and still the FBI and other law enforcement people tell you not to pay, but to leave things in their hands. What a choice...but it IS a choice.

Free will isn't about having every and any choice. It's about being able to choose at all, knowing that one's choices will have consequences. You don't pay the ransom? You will be mourning a family member. But the choice is yours...nobody is going to tie a puppet string to your arm and use you to pay it, will you, nil you.

No sir, free will is the ability to choose between available options...with the consequences of those choices...and there are always, and I mean always, available options, right up until unconsciousness or death. Perhaps extremely constrained, to be certain, but they are there.

 

[dfnj]

Been doing some thinking...

I like the idea of having free will so please, prove me wrong

You get to choose whether or not your have free will. Good luck!

 

[Curious George]

Everything we do and everything that happens has a cause” is true

Seems to me that you were free to not beg the question, but you chose to do so anyway.

Bad logic does not lead to truth.

 

[dfnj]

1) God the unmoved mover – if such a being exists (I believe it does) then we can say we all have a divine spark and that that spark allows us to carry on unmoved actions?

#1. We are drawn to God because we have no choice.

 

[Curious George]

Well, that's part of the point. Given the degree to which we know the laws of physics, there *are* good reasons to question whether we have 'free will'.

Not really.

And, in general, there are plenty of known illusions regarding perception and memory that can incline us to at least wonder if our perception of free will is accurate.

Sounds like a reason to question what we know about science as well. Is it possible to have accurate statistical analysis without control?

 

[Curious George]

​

But why was one word "chosen" and not the other? There has to be something that, in effect, compelled you "choose" word 1 rather than word 2, or else the "choosing" would be an utterly random event, and I'm sure you wouldn't say your reasoning is comprised entirely of a series of random events. You were "chose" 1, because____________________________. And the "cause" in "because" is quite telling. It indicates a compelling factor that eliminated 2 as a possibility and demanded that you "chose" 1. And such a compelling factor at work means that you could not have "chosen" otherwise. To do so would have to mean that the causal events leading up to the moment of "choosing" were different. But they weren't, so 1 was inevitable, which in turn means there was no true choosing. Your so-called choosing is an illusion.

Will is the capacity to act decisively on one's desires.

Free will is to do so undirected by controlling influences.
​

And, the controlling influence is the end result of all the causal events in your life that led up to the moment of acting. One does A rather than B because the cause/effect events were what they were and not something else. If one takes a certain route, A, to get home from work it's because of some governing reason (cause). To take some other route home, B, the governing reason (cause) would have to be different, but there was no different governing reasoning, so you had to take route A.

.

.

Cause is the illusion

 

[Skwim]

Cause is the illusion

In what sense?

.

 

[Curious George]

In what sense?

.

In the same sense you assert free will is the illusion.

 

[Skwim]

In the same sense you assert free will is the illusion.

So you would have me believe you don't think anything is caused.

Unless you want to be serious, have a good day.

.

 

[Curious George]

So you would have me believe you don't think anything is caused.

Unless you want to be serious, have a good day.

.

As serious as anyone's assertion that freewill does not exist.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Now you could argue that freewill is suspended based on this circumstance.

Yes, and it's but one of many examples that chip away at the notion of free will. How much of our behavior is of our own will when there is so much going on that seeks to manipulate us? Free will, or the expectations of gender norms and behaviors? Freely chosen, or something you picked up from your parents?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Cause is the illusion

Cause is clearly not an illusion. We can look at genetics, hormones, culture, personal experiences, and they all directly cause a very massive chunk of who we are and how we behave and react to various situations. We don't eat bugs in America, something that is directly the result of a culture that views it as disgusting and foreign, something caused by many things such as convenience foods and the expectations that food is either grown or be a farm animal or fish. But to much of the world insects are food, and it's weird to not eat them.
And if cause is an illusion advertising would not exist and companies would pump billions into marketing research. Pavlov's dogs wouldn't be a thing. And it's arguable that troops would never come back from war with PTSD. Rape victims would be unscathed. And a positive and encouraging upbringing would be indistinguishable from an abusive and traumatic childhood. Science tells us, however, that such different things cause such dramatically different results that it can even literally be seen in and on the brain and the results typically and very generally and often result in two very different types of adults, one who is confident and successful and the other who has no self-esteem and tends to have unhealthy relations with others.
If cause were an illusion, society and culture could not and would not exist.

 

[Curious George]

Cause is clearly not an illusion. We can look at genetics, hormones, culture, personal experiences, and they all directly cause a very massive chunk of who we are and how we behave and react to various situations. We don't eat bugs in America, something that is directly the result of a culture that views it as disgusting and foreign, something caused by many things such as convenience foods and the expectations that food is either grown or be a farm animal or fish. But to much of the world insects are food, and it's weird to not eat them.

We are going to have to take this slowly. But I am glad you disagree. However please note that you have invoked freewill to assert cause. We cannot look at these without free will. We cannot know any of these things without free will. All correlation and causation you wish to imply requires control. Otherwise we cannot conclude causation. That is, we are not free to conclude causation, we are merely forced to assert causation.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Been doing some thinking...

“Everything we do and everything that happens has a cause” is true

Therefore we can say that all things that happen are determined/caused by things that have happened in the past

Therefore there is no free will as it is impossible to carry out any action that does not have a cause – all actions have and must have a cause

Free will would require being able to act without a cause, which I think would be impossible. No matter how complex the human mind is, its workings are still governed by cause and effect, by things both external and internal to it

Free will is therefore an illusion, as things that come about by “free will” are truly caused by the past

I still believe we have wills, just not free wills!

I like the idea of having free will so please, prove me wrong

We have the freedom to make moral choices but not complete free will.

 

[Shia Islam]

I still believe we have wills, just not free wills!

Shia Muslims believe in something that is not very far from what you said. They believe that we have freewill but we can't do anything that God want us not to do.

He (SWT) can stop us by all the means..he can just cause us to even die before doing the thing that we wanted to do.

But be careful not to go vey far in denying freewill, otherwise an enemy can attack you and then apologizing by saying: did not you just said that I don't have freewill, so why to blame me!

 

[Polymath257]

are you speaking of the pre-conditioning, or propensity to turn right vs less likely left?

Among other factors, yes.

 

[Polymath257]

Not really.

More detail please? The known laws are deterministic on the macroscopic level. That's us.

Sounds like a reason to question what we know about science as well. Is it possible to have accurate statistical analysis without control?

Of course.

 

[Polymath257]

I would define free will as being consciously aware of multiple courses of action, having the ability to consciously reflect on the approapriateness of each alternatives, and then acting on one of them based on those reflections.
Your definition is somewhat trivial. Even the most elementary processes in the universe (as happens in the subatomic realm) are not fully determined by the past events. That is the fundamental nature of the world....as we have discovered through Quantum Physics. Fully deterministic processes are as rare as a blue moon. So why would the mind be constrained in such a way?

True, but the size of Planck's constant says that the distribution of possibilities for macroscopic objects is very small.

It's possible that choices happen during situations where there is sensitive dependence on local conditions in the brain. In that sense, even slight differences in our thoughts or beliefs could lead to a different choice. But then, there is the separate issue of awareness of that sensitivity.

One issue is that nobody can claim we *always* have free will to do whatever we want. If we are falling off a cliff, we do not have the choice to stop falling in mid air.

More generally, our thought processes take time. Decisions take time to make and become conscious. We know, for example, that many choices are made subconsciously and only reported to the consciousness after almost half a second. Our perceptions of what happens does not match the reality.

 

[Polymath257]

We are going to have to take this slowly. But I am glad you disagree. However please note that you have invoked freewill to assert cause. We cannot look at these without free will. We cannot know any of these things without free will. All correlation and causation you wish to imply requires control. Otherwise we cannot conclude causation. That is, we are not free to conclude causation, we are merely forced to assert causation.

How does free will come into play in knowing these things? What choice is made? By what mechanism is it made?

We *know* that choices typically happen subconsciousnly before being reported to the conscious mind. This typically happens up to half a second *before* the conscious mind thinks it is making a decision. This is demonstrated with brain scans and people stating when they made decisions. The times are always off.

Already that shows there is a large amount of illusion and re-writing of the past going on in our decision making. Why would the 'feeling' of free will not be part of that illusion?