On freewill and choice.

I never knew we had an active sense of free will. I always thought that when someone does something or his own free will that meant that he wasn't being compelled to do that thing. Or I did until you told be about active free will. Is passive free will still free will? Did I still marry Esmeralda of my own free will even if I overcame no obstacles?

It might just be that if you insist that only what you call, "active free will" is free will, that if we look for it, and we do not find it, we'll conclude that there is no free will at all. Now, wouldn't that be tragic?

---------- Post added 05-13-2010 at 08:18 AM ----------



If free will is only a delusion, then how can it be a good thing, since if it is a delusion, it does not exist, and what does not exist cannot be a good thing, for what does not exist is not a thing at all? A pink elephant cannot be a good thing, for it is a delusion, and so, it is not a thing, and if it is not a thing, how can it be a good thing? Something wrong here.

I would like for anyone willing to give an example of freewill or a case were freewill is involved to do so here. i believe i can point out the lack of free will in any circumstance. can anyone say that even their own personality and thoughts has in any way displayed freewill.

I have brought this up before but, at times, free will, to me, only comes into play when we consciously decide to resist the natural flow of events.

In nature, I would say, typically most things, including animals, take the path of least resistance. There are times when we as humans know what we ought to be doing(or are at least deliberating a choice between something which would be easy and something that would be more effort consuming) but doing so would require an act against the natural flow of events at the time.

For example, say someone is walking along at a somewhat brisk pace(maybe their late for something) and they accidentally drop a small piece of unimportant paper but notice themselves do so. I would say most would heavily consider continuing on. This, to me, would be going with the natural flow of events. In this situation, I think one has the opportunity to employ their free will by resisting this flow and stopping and going back to pick it up and dispose of it properly.

Now this is quite an arbitrary analogy but I think it at least exemplify what I mean when I say resist the natural flow of events.

Having said that, I will note that going with the natural flow of events is not a bad things in and of itself. But in each moment we must attempt to be conscious of both the natural flow of events and what is important to us so that we can make sure we are flowing in the direction we ought to be.

I have but a vague notion of what you mean by "the natural flow of events", so I can make only a very vague comment about what you have just posted. However, suppose I meet a girl, I fall in love with her, and I marry her. I would say that is an example of the natural flow of events. But, according to you, because I did not consciously resist this natural flow of events, I did not marry the girl I married of my own free will. Is that what you are arguing? If it is, I find that rather disconcerting, since you are denying I married of my own free will for precisely the reason that I, and most who speak English, would say that I did marry of my own free will! I wonder whether it was because of episodes like this that Cicero remarked that there is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not said it.

Why are you telling me this?

---------- Post added 05-27-2010 at 02:45 PM ----------



so your environment and a chain of cause and effect lead to your marriage.

When I tell them that I think what they argued (or said) was absurd, I did tell them I disagreed, and also why I disagreed. I think, that is in this instance, your argument that not only when everything does smoothly, there is no free will, but that precisely because everything goes smoothly there is no free will, is simply absurd. There really is no other word for it. People do say absurd things, and they do it especially when they philosophize, as Cicero noted. But, as Cicero noted, you are not alone in spouting absurdities while philosophizing. It is a common thing. And there are good explanations for it too.

Perhaps you would like to explain why you think that just because things go smoothly, there is no free will. Can't easy decisions be made as well as difficult decisions? (It that is what lies behind your view). We have seen the position is absurd. But, as Cicero points out, that never seems to deter philosophers. And, in fact, I have always maintained that it is from the greatest philosophers that we have most to learn just because they make the greatest mistakes (some of which are absurdities) and we learn so much from pinning down the absurdity, and trying to find out why it was that such intelligent, and often talented people found themselves uttering blatant absurdities.

It was a Church father who is the most notorious and most candid case of all this:

Tertullian wrote that he not only believed in the Incarnation and understood that the doctrine of the Incarnation was absurd, but furthermore, he, Tertullian believed in the Incarnations just because it was absurd. "Credo quia absurdum est!", Tertullian wrote.

Tertullian - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Because you seem to be ignorant of it. Isn't that why you asked?

---------- Post added 05-27-2010 at 02:52 PM ----------



Well of course they did. What makes you think that means I did not marry of my own free will? That is to say, what makes you think that I did not marry because I wanted to marry, and that no one compelled be to marry. What has environment and the chain of cause and effect to do with free will anyway. I wanted to marry the girl. I was not forced to marry her. Therefore, I married her of my own free will.

Your argument is invalid. Dogs and cats are both mammals but calling a cat "a mammal" is not the same as calling a cat "a dog".

Here's a counterexample. Newton's Laws are wrong but they are not absurd.

You make it sound as if love was a sufficient condition for his marriage but love did not guarantee his marriage. He could have just kept dating her if he chose to.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with a lot of the above. Simply because terms are related, that does not mean that they are reducible to one another. You chose (sorry for using the term, but bear with me) to translate this phrase, "An agent has free will on occasions when they make and enact a conscious choice from amongst realisable alternatives," in this manner: " A person has free will when they use free will, because free will exists." What if I preferred to paraphrase ughaibu's phrase thusly, "An individual may exercise free choice when physical possibilities provide an opportunity." Who's version stays truer to both the form and intent of the original? I'm not at all sure how "realisable alternatives" can be reduced to an assumption of free will, it would seem rather that the former is a condition for the possibility of the latter. Also, you disregarded qualifying terms like "occasions", and their nuance, to reduce "choice" to "free will." I don't think the two are reducible. In fact, it might be possible to generate a theory of free will with minimal reference to "choice".



First off, are we assuming that free will is a faculty that we might only exercise in a rational way? What if it were otherwise? In the scenario above you say that a person, let's say me, has two alternatives: a red jelly bean and a blue one. Everything in my life has prepared me for this moment, epochs of cultural development rest their weight on my shoulders, millennia of biological evolution scream to me from out my amygdalae, i desire a red jelly bean. I use my rational mind to weigh the alternatives, the pros and cons, and consider the possible consequences. Finding the consequences relatively innocuous I fire up the old cerebellum to work out the pragmatics of reaching for the jelly bean, and accomplishing this, I finally consume and digest it. Thus fulfilling history's ultimate telos, and initiating Ragnarok.

Now at what point in all that did I react to anything outside myself, beyond the physical alternative presented to me: two jelly beans? And at what point did the "choice" take place? If the "everything in my life" (quoted from above) is put into motion in decision-making, in what way is this "everything" in fact distinct from "me"? Even if we loan this "everything" some external reality, isn't it's meaning subject to the dynamics of my brain's ability to process information? Am I not my brain, or at least, isn't my brain a part of me? If a desire is an an accurate expression of the one who desires, then in what way is it un-free?

I don't really want to reduce the question of free will to a biological or neurological process. I'm just trying to simplify for the sake of an example. My point is that so long as an individual gives some evidence of personal dynamism, a self-interfering pattern, doesn't that provide the grounds for the possiblity of free-will? If not as a rational process, per se, at least an individuating process that "rationality" helps to regulate?

:Cara_2:

If free will is only a delusion, then how can it be a good thing, since if it is a delusion, it does not exist, and what does not exist cannot be a good thing, for what does not exist is not a thing at all? A pink elephant cannot be a good thing, for it is a delusion, and so, it is not a thing, and if it is not a thing, how can it be a good thing? Something wrong here.

Calling something someone says, "semantics" is an empty epithet. All it means is that you don't like what he said. And insisting that persons are free because they have wills is just insisting that exactly what is at issue is true. What is the good of that? That ploy is called, "begging the question".

It is a good idea to separate philosophy from theology. Then you don't confuse the two.

Because you seem to be ignorant of it. Isn't that why you asked?

---------- Post added 05-27-2010 at 02:52 PM ----------



Well of course they did. What makes you think that means I did not marry of my own free will? That is to say, what makes you think that I did not marry because I wanted to marry, and that no one compelled be to marry. What has environment and the chain of cause and effect to do with free will anyway. I wanted to marry the girl. I was not forced to marry her. Therefore, I married her of my own free will.

my definition of freewill is the ability to make a choice for no reason.

Why would anyone desire that? Also, how is that compatible with moral responsibility? I think your definition of free will is a straw man so it's no wonder you've never seen an example of it.

are you serious lol. cant be.

there is no such thing as randomness or chaos there is only a lack of understanding the situation.

I disagree. Also, your belief is not testable or supported by any evidence at all. You have no reason to claim that the universe isn't random.

Yes, quite serious, since that is what the term "free will" means as we ordinarily use it. It has nothing at all with picking something for no reason. It may mean that to you, but why would that matter? If "free will" meant "poached egg" to me, would that matter? It is up to me what a word means to me, but it is not up to me what a word means. I cannot decide what a word means. It is not my decision.

I'm saying that I had it. I could have spit on the sign of my own free will.

Affirmation of free will is a metaphysical claim concerning certain abilities, that is abilities that are actualisable. If you do not consider spitting on the sign but do in any case spit on the sign, then you will not have spat on the sign as an act of will. And as you did not consider spitting, you made no decision to spit or not, thus you had no free will relation with the possibility of spitting.

But he was just saying he could have spit on the sign on his own free will. That is, he could have chosen to spit on the sign.

Sure, but that amounts to no more than that he had freedom, free will also involves will.

Yes, well, I don't think you are using the term like he is using the term. Do you think you are?

The term "free will" includes the component "will", if he's using the term without that component, then he is misusing it.

How we've been using it here is thus:

Free will means the ability to make choice free from compulsion.