Proof of nonexistence of free will

The answer would be we have no real idea when and where it occurs. You can eliminate the question of free will to a crass materialism or to some form of determinism but you can never give an accurate account. In essence its a problem that is "determined" by many fluid and dynamic psychological aspects which we can not take account for.

Free will is just the internal perspective of indetermination: you are not able to understand it because you insist in excluding it in favor of the externally indeterminate. Once you realize that indetermination can be viewed from the inside (which you usually call "I"), you will understand what free will is: just an irreducible indetermination within your own actions.

The question of "free will" can't be answered until we determine unequivocably what it is that's the agent of free will: who is the subject of freedom?

The question of "free will" can't be answered until we determine unequivocably what it is that's the agent of free will: who is the subject of freedom? When I observe myself all I see--regarding choice and freedom--is competing drives; the strongest has its way. And I entertain, if I think about it, the notion that "I" chose between alternatives.

Another thing is that choice is meaningless without alternatives.
What does the will to act mean if there is no distinction between acting and not acting? And if there is no distinction, how can you say that you have will? The very concept becomes meaningless.
We can say that we have free will, and we can say that we do not have it. But either way, it tells us nothing...

And the alternative drives may be unconscious--or one may be conscious and its competitive "alternatives" out of awareness. And often there are only competing unconscious drives resulting in the illusion of completely free will, sans choosing.

Sounds reasonable, but the fact that we make "decisions" from the myriad of options available to "us," nobody can convince me I don't have some level of free will. For example, I made the decision to come on this river cruise in Germany several months ago, and I'm now posting this from Germany.

I don't think we can deny that free will is connected in some obscure yet self-evident way to the internal mode of our being. The question would be though how do we gauge or measure the correlation between Free Will as a mediation of the subject with the object of the mind.

Our intuitions play a role in "shaping" and "forming" our Free Will not because they are one and the same but because the "development" of both naturally coincides with each other. The subject becomes conscious of his Free Will through psychological forces and as we grow as biological organisms.


Likewise we can not be truly conscious in the instinctual sense until we are in the process of enacting our Free Will. This means we need to realize that Free will is not just a theoretical issue for out intellect to systematically grasp but a "process" of the mind that is enacted in our practical duties.

The subject of freedom in essence is posited by the our mind and sensibilities. Its not something which is any sense truly differentiates itself from our mind and sensibility. We just have this illusion that we are separated from over time as our psychological aspects "develop" and we are able to perceive ourselves within the world not as merely a deterministic mechanism but something which has voluntary control over his actions.


This means the world as it surrounds us in correspondence with our freedom to act "distances" itself from our bodies. The world itself does not center itself or appear within the context of our body but it takes on appearance in the forms that our outside of our body.

Its when our senses are able to differentiate between the I and Other of the surroundings is when Free will itself becomes a possibility. This is because the subject has developed a "positive" notion of himself as the subject by becoming cognizant of the multiple potentialities of his environment.

This is true but that very faculty which is responsible for creating the illusion we have free will is the neutrality which is constantly negating free will as a subjective or personal experience. Its an irony but we are responsible for "shaping" and "forming" through conflict and struggle that internal nature of the subject and free will.


In a sense though I can only "shape" and "form" in correlation with other Is so my ability to consciously shape something is limited by the unconscious motives of the other. The thoughts and actions of the other be they conscious or not appear to hold little relevance to me but in essence are extremely relevant to my unconscious.

This means that our unconsciousness is constantly being determined in some way or another but the conscious and unconscious determinations of other Is. That which we call subjective and personal has little room to work with in terms of determining an act freely in the context of morality.

Our options are "limited" by the unconscious determinations of the mode of our will respecting both the rational and moral implications of future acts. This means that we can develop a "model" to predict a certain modes of actions respecting a certain individual or group if we are able to comprehend previous actions. The issue here is trying to gauge or measure an internal motive and this is not always an easy task to fix since the "reasons" for choosing one set of options for another is fluid and dynamic.

Yes given your assertion I can acknowledge you have a semblance of free will but still this is of little relevance to me as an I since I have not sensed it. I can induct it to be true on the basis of my intuition but this does me as little good for me as it does for you. There are some people whose free will is limited by say a mental or physical defect yet they still have the illusion that they have free will and are active agents in respect to morality.


This is because the mind itself necessitates we believe these things to be true even if they are not true. Everything is a self-creation of the mind and this causes us to self-deceive ourselves as to the validity of our free will as a conscious subject in some situations. In your case believing you have free will is different from actually possessing.


Its not always easy to validate given every situation the role which your free will played in a set of thoughts or actions. The fluidity and dynamics of our unconscious almost make it impossible to clearly gauge and measure the "consciousness" of those psychological aspects which are responsible for our "freedom" of will.


You have to ask yourself if perhaps you ever consciously willed yourself to Germany after the fact through the "processes" of your memory. Our memories are not always reliable though because they tend to err when we recollect information from past experiences.

They also tend to confuse the form and content of one experience with another and so on. Your belief that you freely willed yourself will always have a margin of error which is implied within your conscious decisions regardless of how self-confident your mind is to the validity of your freedom as a subject.

I've already tried to make it clear that our environment, biology, education, culture, family and friends all influence our decision-making. Beyond those - mostly obvious - influences, we make our decision to walk on the right or left side of the street. That in essence is based on free will.

Nobody else instructed me to make this post on a2k; it was done by my will to do so. Nobody else can prove otherwise.



else can prove otherwisw.

No one else can prove it though the best you can do to prove it is for your mind to unconsciously validate it for you. You could be self-deceiving yourself by saying you are conscious of typing in a response on able2know freely in regards to a subjective determination. How can you know that some other form of consciousness is not dictating your actions and behavior and what predicates that you are necessarily freely willing yourself in response to your environment?

C.I., I guess all those "influences" that you list ("environment, biology, education, culture, family and friends") including psychological forces are what I mean by the "drives" that determine one's choices and appear to give shape to our "freedom". I have no objection to freedom; I certainly do not accept a hard determinism. As you know I consider the persistent sense of a self or ego behind our actions to be illusory. The subject of our freedom is all Nature; we are its expression.
BTW, if all your influences always made you choose alternatives that you found undesireable--even painful--would you feel free?

It's ironic that you can talk about unconscience reality as you make a dirct responce to my post.

I find it hilarious!

Yes I suppose so. I mean I can't be positive that I am truly in control consciously of things as I "perceive" them to be. For all I know is my brain through the apparatus of my senses might be receiving "signals" or "messages" through wave lengths in sub-atomic space as to how I should say something and what I should say.

I agree that we are limited by our nature, but we also make choices within those constraints. I can also agree that our reality is subjective and fleeting to the extent of what our biology allows us to observe and perceive.

Right on! Now we belong to the same cult.

Well, let me put it in these terms; what other alternatives do we have apart from the 'percieved' choices that we can choose from? An 'individuals' definition of 'freedom' really sets the tone of whether one 'feels' 'free' at all. Moods can determine whether you feel 'powerless' or 'empowered' and I don't neccessarily think it's external influences that determine this, although it is a factor. I think certain people in the world can take a whole lot of crap and still come out the other end somewhat more resilient. How this works is still a mystery to me.

Its absurd though to say you can perceive the passive fleeting nature of reality which "determines" our free will in respect to our "biology." It is something which can be neither perceived or not perceived its almost like a black hole of sorts which our mind tries to "fill" in by making certain things "appear" to our senses where there is nothing to perceive. Its an "illusory" gap which we can never overcome but which our sensibility continues to posit over and against our free will which itself is an extension of this "illusion."