quote:It takes faith in order for me to believe in the Big Bang.
True, but it's a different type of faith. With theories like the Big Bang (or even Strings, Dark Energy, and Dark Matter), there are at least mathematical and/or observational reasons to believe the theory might have some merit. As far as I know, there are no such reasons, outside of religion, to believe in the existence of some type of force that enables free will.
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(In response to camus' earlier post) OK, I pretty much agree with that.
I do get a little irritated when something gets categorized as “religious” in a discussion and can thus be discarded as irrelevant. In a few cases that’s science shooting itself in the foot.
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Faith in the Big Bang is different than faith in the existence of intelligent beings is different than faith in Christ. Only the latter has any significant impact on how I live my life. I think we use “faith” and “religion” too broadly.
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All I said is that basically at this point, the belief in an eternal essence requires a certain measure of faith. I did not attach any religious connotations to it. Perhaps we do use the term "faith" and "religion" too broadly, but that doesn't deny the fact that belief in some type of metaphsical, controlling force requires a certain degree of faith, ie. a firm belief in something for which there is no proof.
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1. I believe that we have freewill. And i classify it as the right to make a choice.
-Someone earlier said that it would not be free will if they made a scenario where they new exactly how you would react but i disagree because knowing how i would react does not mean you have taken away my choices. Just because you know i would not, lets say, burn my sister alive doesnt mean i couldnt so i still have the free will to do that.
2. If you flip to the end of the book and can read the ending does that mean that the characters in the book have no free will? I know this is a wierd example because the characters in a book are fictional but i believe God is the same way. He knows the ending but he didn't pick the ending. I do believe he meddles but not with free will. The bible says he can harden/soften a man/woman's heart but God can't force us to make a choice. God can send angels and messages to tell us things but again God can't make us. He knows what choice we will make though so he also knows when his(im using he to describe God because there is no he/she for a sexless being because i wont call God an it)efforts will work and when they wont. 3. This is something that hasnt previously been brought up and that thing is-INSTINCT. All humans, like or not, run almost 80 percent on instinct. We like to think were special since the average animal runs on something like 99.9 percent instinct. But it still controlls us.
-How much of the stuff we do is because of the opposite sex. I mean everything from deoderant, to not burping in public, to buying flowers, to courting, etc. is done to impress the oppostite sex. And the whole sex thing is the easiest example but almost everything we do is based fundementally on instinct.
So is the fact that the choices we make are due to a preprogramed set of instructions mean that we have less free will?
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quote:If God made you knowing all your choices and could have made you differently to change those choices, how is it that you have Free Will again?
Because you are still choosing, and could have chosen otherwise.
It doesn't matter if God knows what you will choose, or if God set you and the universe up in such a way as to get you to choose exactly what He wants you to, you are still choosing, and still could have chosen otherwise had your nature had been such that you wanted to. God might determine who you are, which then indirectly determines exactly how you choose, but nobody has yet given a reason why that should mean you didn't freely choose what you did.
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Tres: if that's free will, then predestination is free will. I'm generally a fan of not using definitions that are so weak they make the distinctions people consider important immaterial .
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What important distinction does this make immaterial?
Or, more broadly, why do we care about free will? Seriously... why?
I can think of several good reasons. Many of us believe having free will makes life meaningful and valuable, because it allows us to leave our own individual marks on the world, or because it gives us the chance to succeed or fail based on our own decisions, or something along these lines. That's one reason we care about and desire free will. Another reason is the ethical issue - people with free will are accountable for their actions, while people who could not have done otherwise should not be blamed for that which they did wrong. Feel free to explain your own reason for caring about it.
I think these reasons revolve around the fact that free will means we determine how we act, and how we thus take certain benefits or penalties for those decisions. If we have free will then we determine our actions. If we don't have free will then we do not. This distinction is not at all dissolved by my definition.
The distinction that IS dissolved by my definition is this one: If we have free will then our actions are not determined by anything outside us. If we don't then our actions are determined by things outside us. I disagree with this distinction. Notice how it is different from the first one I gave. The first difference is divided along the question of "Do we control our destiny?", whereas the second distinction is divided along the question of "Does someone else control our destiny?" Which of these distinctions is important?
If you control your own destiny, does it matter much if someone/something else also does, indirectly, through you?
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quote:In the example of Saul, God could have chosen not to fortell what Saul was going to do, rather, He just wanted Saul to make his ultimate choice based on knowledge rather than ignorance with Saul still having the choice in determining how he wanted to act upon his newly acquired information.
So your defense of freewill in this example relies on God refusing to exercise omniscience? On the assumption that God did not know exactly how Saul would react to his intervention?
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Tres, your argument is like saying that a domino which falls when it's struck by another domino does so out of its own "free will." I'm sure the domino chooses to invent all kinds of justifications for its action, many of which might even wind up convincing it that falling was the right thing to do, that it had planned to fall, and that falling was really the logical choice.
But someone set the dominoes up. Someone whacked 'em with His finger. And they fell.
That they can come up with all sorts of cute stories to tell themselves about the anguished choices they made about whether or not to fall is completely irrelevant.
Do dominoes control their own destiny? Why should we believe that humans do, in a world with gods?
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Why does it change anything if the world is with or without gods? Whether it's a diety setting up the dominoes or just the laws of physics, what difference does it make to the dominoes?
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Dominoes don't have free will because they aren't people, aren't conscious, and thus don't choose things. Even if the first domino fell over all by itself, it wouldn't have freely "chosen" to fall, no? Rather, we'd say it just spontaneously fell, because free will doesn't apply to inanimate objects. Choosing is an ability unique to minds, or experiencing/thinking things.
But imagine if we arranged a bunch of people in a row and we knew for sure that each of those people would certainly choose to fall onto the next person if the person behind them fell onto them. We'd know for sure that all the domino-people would fall once we knocked over the first. But they would each still control their own destiny, as long as they could decide whether or not to fall when hit by the person behind them. The fact that all would certainly decide to fall does not eliminate that control, because they could have chosen different, if they were of such a nature that they'd choose to.
Who's to blame for the last domino-person falling? If God knocked the first one over, then He is. But so is that first domino-person. And so is the second, and the third, and every other, including the last one. All of them are to blame, because all of them could have prevented the result, had they chosen to act differently. Each domino-person in line controls not only their own destiny, but the destiny of every domino-person in front of them. Why is this a contradiction? Why can't more than one thing control the given destiny of a domino-person, including that domino-person itself?
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quote:The fact that all would certainly decide to fall does not eliminate that control, because they could have chosen different, if they were of such a nature that they'd choose to.
*laugh* Listen to yourself, Tres. "They could have chosen differently, if they were of such a nature..."
In that sentence, you tacitly ADMIT that one's choices are defined by one's nature. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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"Dear Diary, Today both TomD and Fugu defended my argument. I can only guess that I have slipped into some strange alternate demension. Oh look, it's raining Ice Cream!"
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quote:From my perspective, Saul’s free will was restored to him on the road to Damascus.
AFR, I don't see how that makes any sense for any useful definition of "free will." Saul had chosen. God disapproved of his choice, so struck him blind and sent him miracles to change his mind, knowing in advance (presumably) what Saul would choose when this happened. Saul would not have chosen to convert in that manner had not God intervened; God's intervention, therefore, directly canceled the normal exercise of Saul's will.
In the same way, someone about to kill someone else in an accident while drunk driving would presumably NOT drive drunk if God appeared to them and struck them blind before they got behind the wheel. But God allows this hypothetical driver to drive because he respects free will enough to let people make bad decisions that hurt other people.
God did NOT respect Saul's decisions.
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A few thoughts on that, Tom, and thanks for responding. First, Saul was being punished for his choices to that point. The ability to choose for ourselves, at least as I see it, does not come with the ability to choose the consequences of our choices. Saul had chosen wrong, and these were apparently the consequences, with more to come if he didn't shape up.
As a corollary to that, bad choices tend to lead to less freedom of choice in your life. You choose to start drinking, you choose to drink more, you choose to get behind the driver's seat while drunk, and eventually you find yourself without many choices at all, perhaps behind bars for killing someone. In this case, an accident or a court has taken away much of your remaining freedom to choose. It appears that the court has not respected your decisions by taking away your power to decide, when in fact your decisions led to this judgment and these consequences.
So with Saul---from God's perspective, Saul had made a string of bad choices that constricted his ability to do good and that was leading many others down the same path. Saul's decisions had led him to these consequences, which were both inescapable and just. God himself acknowledged that Saul was "kicking against the pricks," or basically being herded around like cattle at that point.
Next, Saul/Paul was a fairly unusual example of God's intervention. God knew who Saul was and what he would accomplish if converted. He also knew the damage Saul would do if left to his own devices. So God made an example out of him. It was visible and spectacular because Paul's conversion story would become a very important missionary tool in its own right. The fact that Paul stayed blind for three days directly relates to the period of time Jesus lay in the tomb, and finally having the scales fall from his eyes represents being born again. It's a very pointed example, actually, and rich with meaning to Christians.
As for God not intervening in other cases and letting people cause harm to others: my only answer is that he reserves judgment according to his own knowledge and purposes, but does deal justly in all cases.
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quote:As a corollary to that, bad choices tend to lead to less freedom of choice in your life.
And yet very rarely does God strike someone blind before they can make more bad choices. And the traditional explanation for this is that God respects free will too much to intervene.
Which, by extension, means that God did not respect Saul's free will enough to avoid intervening. Consider your own quote, which makes my case for me:
quote:God knew who Saul was and what he would accomplish if converted. He also knew the damage Saul would do if left to his own devices. So God made an example out of him.
Does this suggest that Saul's free will was exercised? Or does it suggest that, indeed, he was not "left to his own devices?"
quote:my only answer is that he reserves judgment according to his own knowledge and purposes, but does deal justly in all cases
Or so you sincerely hope.
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quote:In that sentence, you tacitly ADMIT that one's choices are defined by one's nature.
Yes, that's exactly the point. Your nature is you! So, that's another way of saying what free will is - it's when your nature (you) can determine your future. And that's what choice is - when the external world confronts you with options and your state of mind (your nature) gets to determine what you do.
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There is no destiny. There is only free will. I was convinced when I learned about the suicide concept. This is the only proof I need to understand that whatever the details of the definitions of the two concepts (destiny/free will) are, the “issue” is just a matter of faith.
Yet, the religious people seem to cling (by faith) to the destiny + free will “solution”. The power to end one’s own existence (the conscious one, obviously) means there is no external “controller” of destiny. And those who believe that someone could have “the destiny to end one's own existence, unexpectedly” than that is the biggest proof of that bliever’s faith. Period. [It is a self-supported belief]
And for the part that relates this issue to the “omnipotent” deity, well, whatever deity one chooses, it MIGHT BE that it (the deity) is just a concept. Therefore the implications of its “existence” over this issue are based on pure faith, the same one that “proves” that existence in the first place.
I suggest that there is no Universal answer to this “debate”. The truth on the matter is simply personal and it depends on faith, education, morality, intelligence, openmindness, etc (not necessarily in this order).
posted
I believe in free will because I experience it every day. I chose to run 20 minutes on the treadmill this morning. I hate running, and today it was particularly hard to make the choice to do it. I know that I could have chosen not to do it because: A.) when faced with the choice to run or not, I have chosen more often to "not". B.) There were many immediate benefits (as I see them) to choose "not" today, yet I chose to forego those benefits in favor of the one long term benefit I saw.
That's, conceptually, really all I need in order to believe in free will. (I mean I believe in free will because the example above illustrates perfectly a concept I see repeated hundreds of times a day.) Now there are even more times a day when my behavior goes into auto-pilot. Perhaps I am not excercising my free will at those times, but I certainly could if I wanted to.
I believe in the ability to imagine a not-yet-existent future, to consider the implications of that future, and to take actions that will insure (or at least facilitate) making that future real. To me, that is free will.
I'll grant that it can be argued metaphysically that this is all an illusion. To me this is an example of useless navel-gazing that ultimately adds no value to my life. Therefore to me it is irrelevant whether this is true or an illusion. There is no way for me to tell conclusively one way or the other, so I adopt the belief that best fits with my observations and what kind of person I want to be. YMMV.
Now, the fact that I believe in free will is one of the primary reasons I do not believe in God as he has heretofore been conventionally defined. I understand Tom's "Saul" complaint, but I'm not sure I agree with him because (even if I assume the "facts" of the story), I see another possibility. Perhaps God did not remove Saul's free will, but helped him re-direct it. Perhaps in Saul's heart he was doing God's will to the degree that he understood it, but based on what he "knew" about God could not have chosen differently and still continued (in his mind) to choose God's will. Perhaps God had mercy on him and gave him what was necessary to show Saul the error of his premises. Saul, now Paul, continued with the same choice he had made before (i.e. to do the will of God as he understood it) only now with more correct understanding. Thus, his free will was not what changed, but his understanding of reality.
However, that explanation, while preserving free will for Paul, does not explain why God does not perform this service for others. Why does God not give a "Saul Moment" to the Dali Lama? Or if you don't like that example, surely you believe there is someone in the world sincerely trying to do God's will but actually working against him out of misunderstanding. Take your pick. The fact that God doesn't do this for others indicates that he either does not care about them or the people they influence or that maybe to God the Christian way isn't the only one that serves his purposes.
(But for the record, what I believe about the Saul/Paul story is that Saul made a political decision and he or someone later made up a conversion story to explain his switch. Yeah, it's cynical, but it also preserves free will and has the added benefit of fitting better with my experience of the world and my idea of logic than the traditional religious alternatives. YMMV)
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quote:Dominoes don't have free will because they aren't people, aren't conscious, and thus don't choose things. Even if the first domino fell over all by itself, it wouldn't have freely "chosen" to fall, no? Rather, we'd say it just spontaneously fell, because free will doesn't apply to inanimate objects. Choosing is an ability unique to minds, or experiencing/thinking things.
I think this distinction is the argument.
We say the domino fell as a result of an initial outside action, laws of physics, the properties of the domino itself, and the particular environment that the domino was in. Thus, it is obvious from our perspective that the domino had no actual choice in the matter. It was just following rules already in place. If the domino had enough of a brain, it might assume that it had made a choice, even though we realize that it actually did not.
So how are we different? We too are governed by environmental forces, laws of physics, properties of our human nature, and the environment that we find ourselves in. All of these things are factors in determining the decision we make about a given situation. The fact that we see it as a conscious choice does not necessarily mean that it is anything more than the sum of all the parts working around and within us.
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1) I don't believe in freewill. I do beleive in a very cheap and easy will, but that is between Will and his special friends.
2) I do believe in destiny, but I don't believe in Destiny's Child. I mean, they are totally figments of the imagination.
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quote:The power to end one’s own existence (the conscious one, obviously) means there is no external “controller” of destiny.
No it doesn't. Someone could still be controlling you if they knowingly made you in such a way so that you would choose to end your own existence. In that case you would be controlled, but you'd also have free will, because it was still your choice whether or not to end your existence, whether or not someone knew exactly how you'd choose.
Being controlled and having free will do not contradict, so long as the control is limited only to getting you to choose the way they intend you to. Free will only disappears when you would choose to do one thing, but the controller users external factors to prevent you from carrying out that choice.
quote:We say the domino fell as a result of an initial outside action, laws of physics, the properties of the domino itself, and the particular environment that the domino was in. Thus, it is obvious from our perspective that the domino had no actual choice in the matter. It was just following rules already in place. If the domino had enough of a brain, it might assume that it had made a choice, even though we realize that it actually did not.
Obvious? It's obvious that the domino had no actual choice IF it had no brain. But if the domino had "enough of a brain" to be conscious, then that's a different matter. If the only reason the domino fell was because the conscious mind of the domino decided to, even if that's just because the nature of that conscious mind is that it always wants to follow the rules, then the domino DOES have a choice in the matter. It (the mind) had wanted to it could have chosen otherwise then, no?
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quote:Choosing is an ability unique to minds, or experiencing/thinking things.
Is choosing the unique ability or is the illusion of choice the unique ability?
I thought that I had agreed with what Tres was orginally saying but now I think Tres gives free will too much credit for me to agree with.
I personally don't see why free will and determinism can't co-exist. I believe in a deterministic world, and I believe that if you knew all the inputs, variables, initial conditions, etc...you can always determine the outcome. If you understood someone's genetics perfectly, the whole sum of their lifes experiences, every thought they've ever had, their current mental and physical state, etc...you could determine what they would "choose" to do in any given situation.
But that doesn't change the fact that as an individual you still have to make that choice. YOU don't know what the outcome is and you still have to go through the experience of choosing. That doesn't make the experience any less real and it doesn't make the choice any easier.
I could've chosen to not type a reply at all. I could've chosen to just say, "i agree with Tom". And i could've chosen to word this post in a countless number of ways. I could choose to delete this whole post right now. But this is what i chose to do.
So sure, maybe in a technical sense it's all an illusion, but it's all very real to me. Maybe like Tom said, it's an essential fiction. Because I do at times have a hard time reconciling my views on determinism/free will and the concept of being responsible for ones actions. If free will is an illusion, than is it fair to put someone in jail for the rest of their life for something they couldn't help doing? It is an essential fiction in that society couldn't function unless people were held responsible for their actions.
I hate to leave this post without any resolution, but i have to get back to work. Or maybe I just choose to...
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quote:So sure, maybe in a technical sense it's all an illusion, but it's all very real to me.
Why? If it looks like what we'd consider real free will, if we should act as if it were real free will, and if treating it as if it were real free will is necessary to act and judge ethically, then why is it not free will?
If something looks like free will and should be treated as free will, there needs to be a VERY good reason why we shouldn't consider it real free will. I've asked for that reason several times on this thread, and have yet to receive any answer.
At the same time, what else could REAL free will even be? Acting randomly, without allowing reasons to dictate how you make your decisions? If dominoes stood and fell randomly, would that mean they have free will? To put it another way, is it free will if my mind randomly violates it's own nature and suddenly, for no reason whatsoever, decides to go rob a bank? That's insanity, not free will.
A free person is deterministic, and bases decisions in a predictable fashion on his own stable nature and the information available to him. Only an insane person is indeterministic, basing his "decisions" on nothing whatsoever, not even on his own nature. Such a person is not free.
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quote:If it looks like what we'd consider real free will, if we should act as if it were real free will, and if treating it as if it were real free will is necessary to act and judge ethically, then why is it not free will?
Because it's not truly free, Tres. It only appears to be free will because we lack the intelligence to perceive and the power to manipulate all the inputs that produced the inevitable decision.
It goes deeper than simply having "reasons;" it's an acknowledgement of the fact that you will always respond to certain stimuli in a certain way, and that your "reasons" largely consist of those responses.
I understand that you consider "freedom" to be an end in itself, and therefore are emotionally invested in the term. But "freedom" in a closed system simply isn't possible.
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Tom, do you believe free will to be an impossibility? Is there any hypothetical situation you can come up with in which a being could have free will?
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Then answer my second question: If what I described is not freedom, then what is? Give me an example of what it would mean to make a free decision that is not determined solely by inputs and the nature of the decider?
Edit: Err... yes, what beverly just said!
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quote:Being controlled and having free will do not contradict, so long as the control is limited only to getting you to choose the way they intend you to. Free will only disappears when you would choose to do one thing, but the controller users external factors to prevent you from carrying out that choice.
Ironically, I think it's just the opposite. If you are controlled to choose a specific way, you have no free will. You are robotically exercising the will of another. On the other hand, preventing you from carrying out a certain choice does not remove your free will, only your ability to enact it. For instance, if you have such control over me that I cannot ever choose contrary to your will, then you have eliminated my free will. Or perhaps a better example, if I have to choose a path and I could choose right or left, but you make it so that I do not see a left, but only a right, you have taken away my free will in that case.
On the other hand, if you let me see the choice, but somehow make me choose right and make me think I chose it myself, then you have preserved the illusion of my free will, but have removed the free will in reality.
However, if I want to go left and you pick me up and drag me right, kicking and screaming, you have not removed my free will. I still choose left, but you have removed my freedom to enact my will. The will itself, though, remains preserved.
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quote:But "freedom" in a closed system simply isn't possible.
I'm not sure I get what you're saying. To me that's like saying a man in a jail cell has no free will. Of course he does. He can exercise his free will in a million ways. He may be restricted from enacting that will, but he can still will whatever he wants. The very phrase, "held against his will" indicates acknowledgement of the preservation of will even if the freedom to enact it has been removed.
Maybe I misunderstand what you mean by "closed system"?
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posted
I keep thinking of that guy from the concentration camps (who's name eludes me ), who wrote a book. He spoke of how in spite of the horrible suffering and lack of freedom, he still had his free will and no one could take that from him. I find that marvelously inspiring.
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posted
I think what Tom means is any system in which ALL the inputs and initial conditions can be known.
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posted
No problem, it's one of my favorites. You should check out Legends of Our Time if you like Wiesel's stuff. It's a collection of short stories. Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I think that one problem is that some people seem to be arguing in respect to the "freedom to choose". Which isn't a matter of free will but a matter of freedom.
We're trying to determine whether that feeling of retaining free will(while being deprived freedom) that that holocaust survivor was talking about is actually "free" will or just a false self-perceptual illusion brought about by a fundemental flaw(that may not be the right word) in the way our minds percieve the world around us and our place in it.
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quote:Then answer my second question: If what I described is not freedom, then what is? Give me an example of what it would mean to make a free decision that is not determined solely by inputs and the nature of the decider?
Well, if there is an actual eternal essence in humans, some soul or entity that is more than just the conscious mind, I would classify that as a freedom that doesn't rely solely on inputs and the nature of the decider.
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quote:We're trying to determine whether that feeling of retaining free will(while being deprived freedom) that that holocaust survivor was talking about is actually "free" will or just a false self-perceptual illusion brought about by a fundemental flaw(that may not be the right word) in the way our minds percieve the world around us and our place in it.
Then I'd say the question is unanswerable and therefore irrelevant. Is that a toffee brownie on my desk or just an illusion so perfect that I see, feel, smell, and taste a toffee brownie? Who knows? Who cares?
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posted
I care, because like i said before, that doesn't make it any less real for me, or anyone else experiencing the world. We must act as if our choices are free, otherwise what's the point of doing anything? i might as well just stay home all day and watch tv and eat chocolate chip cookies. I couldn't help it anyway, it wasn't my choice, i was predestined to be a bum.
Anyway...why is the question unanswerable? We're all made up of the same small particles that all interact according to set laws. Everything that makes us up and that makes up everything else in the universe acts according to set rules. It's just a matter of taking what we know about science, and physicas and biology, and applying it to how our minds work. Maybe everything we need to know to answer this question isn't known yet, but that doesn't mean it's unknowable
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posted
While reading the posts in this thread I realized that this debate is like a bunch of colorblind people arguing about the colors of the rainbow. And not only that, but apparently the names of the colors themselves are not agreed upon. So I propose that each opinion should come with the definition of the “destiny” or “free will” that it sustains, and/or some examples where those apply. I’m not saying that nobody did that, but there are a lot of those who expect that everybody else knows (and agrees) on “their” definition. Here I have the definitions that come from online dictionaries, as a reference:
quote: destiny n 1: an event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen in the future [syn: fate] 2: the ultimate agency that predetermines the course of events (often personified as a woman); "we are helpless in the face of Destiny" [syn: Destiny, Fate] 3: your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you); "whatever my fortune may be"; "deserved a better fate"; "has a happy lot"; "the luck of the Irish"; "a victim of circumstances"; "success that was her portion" [syn: fortune, fate, luck, lot, circumstances, portion]
For me, destiny is the concept that appears in phrases like: It was her destiny to make that scientific breakthrough!/ Such a nice couple, they were destined to each other. / I can’t fight my destiny!
This is that “destiny” that I say IT DOESN’T EXIST. If a person is destined to do/become something during hers life, but commits suicide a day before, then there is no destiny. The fact that it is possible (even if suicide isn’t that common) makes me think there is no such thing as destiny. Of course, the fact that I’m not one of those persons who need to be told “Yes, there is a (higher) point in life, and No, you don’t have to assume the responsibility to find it, someone else (eg the Church) is glad to point it to you.” helps me accept my responsibilities in this here life.
Also for me, free will is the fact that knowing what I know, I can decide what to do next, I can choose to do even something that goes “against” traditions, “unexpected” things and so on. And I surely don’t like to “submit to others will”, and that’s the primal sign of my own free will.
Thus, there is no destiny, there is only free will.
quote:We must act as if our choices are free, otherwise what's the point of doing anything? i might as well just stay home all day and watch tv and eat chocolate chip cookies. I couldn't help it anyway, it wasn't my choice, i was predestined to be a bum.
I agree. I'm with ya. But I don't care because I don't think the question is answerable in my lifetime and I'm not sure the question is important even if in some far far distant future it might conceivably be answerable.
But while I don't deny the possibility of it being answerable, I'm very skeptical that it will ever be. Of the things we need to know that you listed, "how our minds work" is probably the most important to determining if there is free will or not. Even if we can trace every atom and see how cause after cause after cause put you in the state of mind that you are in at the moment a choice presents itself, it does not follow that you will make a specific choice. Additionally, we already know enough about behavior to show that when faced with a concious decision, people don't always choose the same way. Even if you show that every indicator of every previous cause up to this point indicates that this person at this time will almost definitely choose A over B, you won't know until he makes the choice if you are right, and you won't know even then if he was caused to make the choice, or if he coincidentally chose freely what was predicted. And even if you're relatively sure in this particular case, all those causes and events leading up to that correctly predicted choice only hold true for that particular case. You have to consider a whole new set of variables for the next person. The astronomical amount of stuff you'd have to know to even significantly weaken the "illusion" of free will, in my opinion, is far more effort than knowing whether it is an illusion or not is worth.
I'm not even sure this is a question that could be answered by a being outside of our universe, were he able to perfectly observe our universe.
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I agree Karl, you would need to know an astronomical amount of data to accurately predict what I'm talking about. And we need to learn alot more about the mind.
But I disagree with your point about knowing "that when faced with a concious decision, people don't always choose the same way". Not that I disagree with the statement, but I disagree with what you are trying to imply with it. I have never argued that determinism means that you will always make the same choice when presented with an option. Just that what choice you WILL make is knowable if all the inputs and present conditions are known.
quote:You have to consider a whole new set of variables for the next person.
that's exactly the point. the variables are always changing. but that doesn't mean the equation doesn't work.
so as you say, it would take a being intimately aware of the state of every particle in the universe(and assuming that this universe IS a closed system), from it's very initial condition to its present state to determine what the next sentence I type is going to be.
I like Star Wars.
That would most likely necessitate a being outside of this universe as it's unlikely(as Tom says) that any being inside of a closed system could know everything about the state of said closed system, including themselves.
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quote:And I surely don’t like to “submit to others will”, and that’s the primal sign of my own free will.
Unless of course you were made that way.
What do you mean? That I’ve “been made” deliberately this “way”, not liking to submit to others will? What is that proof of? Destiny or free will?
If it's "my destiny" to have free will, then there is no need for the debate. If, on the contrary, that implies that free will is "just" an illusion, than tell me how can anyone ever know she has free will?
A. [edit, too many "quote:" ]
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quote:No one CAN ever know. So we pretend that everyone does.
Out of context this sounds like you’re talking about the existence of some God
Within the topic context, does this mean that you agree to “Free will is just a convenient concept” ? [I think somebody said this already on this thread, maybe yourself…]
quote:However, if I want to go left and you pick me up and drag me right, kicking and screaming, you have not removed my free will. I still choose left, but you have removed my freedom to enact my will. The will itself, though, remains preserved.
That is a good point. So, free will isn't necessarally the ability to control your own destiny. It's the ability to choose the action you desire to do, whether or not you can actually act upon that choice.
quote:Well, if there is an actual eternal essence in humans, some soul or entity that is more than just the conscious mind, I would classify that as a freedom that doesn't rely solely on inputs and the nature of the decider.
I do believe in the soul... and wouldn't you say the soul IS the nature of the decider? A person is not their body, but rather their mind/soul. Therefore, the nature of a person is the state of their conscious mind and their soul. So, when I say it is your nature that determines your choices, I mean it is your soul - that which is fundamentally YOU, whatever it is.
But again, if God made your soul the he could have determined how it would decide things, and thus determine how you would choose what you choose. This would not stop you from choosing freely, though. It would just mean both you and God are fully determining the outcome of your choice.
quote:I care, because like i said before, that doesn't make it any less real for me, or anyone else experiencing the world. We must act as if our choices are free, otherwise what's the point of doing anything? i might as well just stay home all day and watch tv and eat chocolate chip cookies. I couldn't help it anyway, it wasn't my choice, i was predestined to be a bum.
Notice the casual jump you made there: First you say you "couldn't help it" - then you say you were "predestined to be a bum". Note that these two things are not exactly the same.
Being predestined to do something means it was certain beforehand that you would do it. But, just because it is certain you will choose to do one thing does not mean you "couldn't" have chosen to do otherwise.
If I am driving to work and a car stops in front of me (and I see it in time) then it is certain that I will stop. In such a situation you could say I was predestined to stop. But does that mean I could not have done otherwise? No, I could have chosen not to stop, had I wanted to. So, I was in fact predestined to stop, yet I could have done otherwise had I wanted to. Therefore, you cannot jump from "being predestined to do something" to "could not have done otherwise" because the former does not imply the latter.
This is critical to this question, because of why you just said you cared. You care because you think no free will implies there's no point in anything. So, which of the following two issues actually does make everything pointless? 1) Being predestined to do what you do 2) Being unable to do anything otherwise If you are predestined to do something, but you can do otherwise if you want, then there's still a point to living, no? After all, you can do otherwise, so your choices still mean something, even if they were predictable beforehand. Hence, having (1) but not (2) does NOT make everything pointlesss. In contrast, if there is no predestination, but you are forced to do everything the one way you do it, then choices are pointless no? You can't do otherwise, so regardless of whether predestination is true, you have no real choices. Hence, having (2) but not (1) DOES make things pointless.
Therefore, we can conclude that if you are correct that no free will means everything is pointless, then it must mean (2) and not necessarily (1) - meaning that no free implies you can't do otherwise, rather than implying that you were predestined to do what you do. That shows us the definition we should be using.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: But "freedom" in a closed system simply isn't possible.
Actually, I don't think this statement is true. Stating it as though it's true doesn't make that the case. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:It's the ability to choose the action you desire to do...
But what if someone can make you desire things, Tres? You're still choosing, but are you still free?
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), who wrote a book. He spoke of how in spite of the horrible suffering and lack of freedom, he still had his free will and no one could take that from him. I find that marvelously inspiring.
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