Free Will

Free will is a big topic of debate amongst philosophers. So in a bid to make a maeningful thread on something actually philosophical, what stance do you take in respect to free will?


Hard Determinism: Everything you have done, are doing and ever will do has been predetermined and cannot be changed. Your illusion of choice are actually predetermined and your choice in matters don't really exist.

Essential, free will does not exist.


Soft Determinism: You have the ability to choose the outcome of many aspects of life, but the general path your life takes is out of your control.

A good analogy for this is a freeway. You can choose what lane to drive in and how fast, but you will end up in the same spot regardless.


Libertarianism: In this context means you have total control of over the outcome over your life. You are free to make any choice you wish and there are infinite ends and infinite means to those ends. You're in control.\


I will play Devil's Advocate where necessary to spur discussion.

Free will is a religious sentiment.

Religion does not apply to me.

madman said:

Free will is a religious sentiment.

Religion does not apply to me.

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How is free will a religious sentiment?

Juiposa said:

How is free will a religious sentiment?

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Look it up and you'll see that it's attached to religion.


edit: i talk it back. I was wrong.
got some reading to do now.

I now change my choice to: Libertarianism

madman said:

Look it up and you'll see that it's attached to religion.

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Can we not make this a religious discussion? Whether or not religion has adressed it, it is still a topic of interest.

Soft Determinism. Start and end of life are guaranteed. You pick the road(s) between the two, though.

In a religious sense, in this case of the Abrahamic deity, free-will couldn't exist. The very existence of an all knowing deity makes free will impossible. Definition of free will: The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or faith; the ability to act at one's own discretion. Having a deity already knowing your future actions does not fall within the bounds of that definition, no matter how diligently you try to keep them from being mutually exclusive.
However, even without the existence of a deity, I do not believe in free will. Since human beings are always under the constraints of necessity "Need for water, food, shelter, physical capacity". That still offers plenty of leniency, however, once you throw genetics and early childhood environment in the mix, free will "IMO" is out the window and into the busy street. Genetics will determine the general area of your intelligence "education constraints", physical build "sports constraints, and constraints on your attractiveness to other human beings", susceptibility towards disease "life span/quality constraints". Throw in socioeconomic class "education constraints, job constraints, shelter constraints, access to information I.E intelligence constraints". Now let's throw in another deterministic part of human behavior, repetition of past behavior. All new choices you make are based on past choices, many past choices in early childhood were made by parents, and many others were encouraged by friends. Further still, the majority " %90?" of the brain's function is subconscious, much of that is the control of your bodily functions, but other parts also control your subconscious behavior. Add in all of these factors, and I doubt that a single decision that we make is actually made by our unadulterated conscious mind.

I find the options limiting.

Basically, I believe that all people have the ability to make choices in their lives, choices that lead the individual on certain paths but no single choice at no single time in one's life limits future outcomes or determines a single path unless, of course, such a choice leads to death.

Other. We all have lots of choices. No choice is made in a vacuum. Every choice has consequences. Most of our choices are made based on subconscious information and impulses that we don't know about. Whether I am typing this right now or starting to make dinner is a freely made choice that I am making, based on thousands of physical and mental sensations and details that I am processing all at the same time. I'm hungry, so now I'm going to stop typing. Is that a freely made or determined choice?

I want to believe in free will, but I think that perhaps I do not. If I try to trace an action back which seems like a choice, I find that I am always able to speculate about some cause(s) for that action, other than choice. True choice seems necessary to me in order for free will to exist.

Most moral action seems to find its root in the character of an individual. I think individuals have little choice in the development of their own character.

I believe that the universe is deterministic and free will is just an illusion.

I disagree with how most people define free will. Clearly, we are able to make choices in life, those choices are not predetermined. I can order chocolate, vanilla or any other flavor of ice cream, there's nothing forcing me to pick one over the other.

Hard determinism. Everything in the universe is governed by the laws of physics and any apparent chaos is just the result of not knowing all the variables and all the rules. There is no magic inside the human brain that exempts it from the laws dictating the actions of everything else in existence. The concept of free will is just a manifestation of ego-protecting cognitive biases that delude us into thinking we're something other than funny walking mammals with an extra pound of fat in our heads.

I've argued taht under determanism OR indetermanism free will, or free choice is impossible.

Determanism,
1. All events are caused by other events, ether simultaneous or past in their entirety.
2. Mental events are caused in their entirety by physical events in the brain, physical events in the brain cause movements in the body, in their entirety.
3. Choices are mental events which are caused in their entirety by physical events in the brain.
4. Those Choices are accompanied by movements in the body or other events in the brain, which themselves are caused entirely by events in the brain.
5. Thus there is no reason be believe, that these mental event cause anything, since the events that accompany them are entirely explained by events in the brain.
6. All events in the brain are material events that are in turn caused by other material events, either internally or by external stimuli.
7. Thus all mental events are materially caused.
8. Thus no choices can be made other than those which are physically determined.

Indetermanism,
Quantum physics is many times interpreted to mean that determinism is not true, meaning that events can happen without cause, or not necessarily but by probability. So let assume that quantum events in the brain make it a non deterministic mechanism. Now lets assume that a brain has 3 choices, A, B and C, and the brain chooses A, then we get in a time machine, go back to before the choice and it chooses C, and you do that 30 times, the brain chooses (A) 7 times, (B) 14 times and C (9) times, now lets say you do that again and it comes out (A) 12 times, (B) 4 times and (C) 14 times .... You havn't gotten any closer to free will, since the outcome is random, and all it means that the physical matter is non deterministic, not that the physical matter is CAUSED by some mental event such as intentionality or choice. "

So there CANNOT be any free will, or free choice, or anything like that.

I think it's a cross between soft determinism and libertarianism.

To explain: We are all the product of many things we cannot control. Let's call that the ovary lottery. We can be born with screwed up genes, in a screwed up environment or to screwed up parents. A baby born in the slums of some third world country or to a drug addled violent alcoholic has as little chance of success as one born with an IQ in the 70's. However, someone born in the West, with a fairly high IQ and great access to an unlimited education is almost totally in control of his fate.

ChunkySalsa said:

Hard determinism. Everything in the universe is governed by the laws of physics and any apparent chaos is just the result of not knowing all the variables and all the rules. There is no magic inside the human brain that exempts it from the laws dictating the actions of everything else in existence. The concept of free will is just a manifestation of ego-protecting cognitive biases that delude us into thinking we're something other than funny walking mammals with an extra pound of fat in our heads.

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There is a major contradiction in that belief. There is no ego to protect if the universe is purely deterministic. No matter what you do, be it run naked through the town square flapping your arms singing Justin Beiber songs, researching the cure for cancer, of walking to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk, it was what you are supposed to do. There is no motive, there is no desire, there is simply the endless progression of pre-determined events. There is no reason at all to choose one of those actions over the other, or even consider it.

Personally I find it harder to conceive of a universe where random atoms managed to congeal into HAMLET than a universe where all of existences is as conscious of me as I am of it.

Because the future is an illusion, not an existent reality, no one knows the future .. not even God.

If the future is not known, it is impossible to validate/prove whether degrees anywhere on the determinism-free will scale are true.

Thus the question itself is unanswerable .. and partially accounts for why "philosophers" are still asking the question, our trepidation about the unknown coupled with our apparent inevitable death being the other part that compels this discussion in quest of the ultimate mental Xanax.

jmotivator said:

There is a major contradiction in that belief. There is no ego to protect if the universe is purely deterministic. No matter what you do, be it run naked through the town square flapping your arms singing Justin Beiber songs, researching the cure for cancer, of walking to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk, it was what you are supposed to do. There is no motive, there is no desire, there is simply the endless progression of pre-determined events.

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No, there is no contradiction. There is nothing inherent to the concept of hard determinism that conflicts with the observed phenomenon of "ego." Motives and desires and reasons are nothing more than factors that determine what you will do, just as momentum and english and friction are factors that determine where a cue ball goes.

jmotivator said:

There is no reason at all to choose one of those actions over the other, or even consider it.

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You can't say "there is no reason why anyone would choose to do that stuff, therefore the fact that they did it means they have choice." I'm pretty sure that's a logical fallacy...begging the question...?