Free Will

the future has not been planned out, but it could certainly be predicted

we have free will in that we can make choices, but all our choices could be predicted based on our personality, experiences, and environmental variables

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Stuh
About free will, I entirely agree with you. That was my position in another topic with the same subject, a few weeks ago.
But I dont accept that future can be predicted. At least in a long term. That would imply a rigid causality and, in this case, there would be no reason to accept free will. If the future is predictable, then the present could also be predicted in the past, and our actions would be subjected to a rigid determinism.

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val,

quantum physics is the only place where concepts such as randomness are believed to be true

i believe that these "random" things are still just our attempt to explain what we don't understand, such as the position of an electron around a nucleus

I say this because the concept of randomness does not make sense. things happen for reasons, which on a small enough level are definite

genetic mutations we say are random, but not really...it just is too difficult to predict because it has to do with the precise locations of billions of electrons and building blocks and their interactions between each other...so it SEEMS random and certainly we could never actually make accurate predictions

but IF all of the information about everything in the universe was known, then anything could be predicted

because our bodies and minds are composed of the same building blocks that the rest of the universe is, the particles in us follow the same laws. and that applies to consciousness. our decisions are the result of logic, emotions, experiences...but all of this is represented in some physical form. memories are stored in a physical form. everything follows the same laws of the universe, and therefore, the decisions that we make are not "pre-determined" so to speak (because nobody has decided what will happen) but they are predictable because there is only 1 possible linear chain of events for the future.

The only rational way to disagree is to believe in magic or God.

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I have a fairly unique view of 'Destiny': I believe that a person's Destiny is retro-active; that everything they do is destined because that's what you're going to do. [This] is your destiny because that's the choice you made with your free will. It's almost as if someone brought back a history book from the future: You decided to do these things, then they were written about, and now there's a book apparently telling you what's going to happen...but you still decided by yourself. I hope that made sense.

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When you perceive a cause of some effect, free will and choices appear to be real and meaningful. But then shift the focus on effects, the destiny would seem to overpower free will and expose the limits of one's choices. I think in reality cause & effects are embedded into each other. And so is Destiny & Free will. Perhaps their apparent separation is the source of contradictions. Like chicken and egg.

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Stuh
Things happen for reasons because you give those reasons to things.
As Kant said, man is the legislator of nature.
Cause is a mental concept. You dont see causes, you dont touch them. You only see things that occur in your experience. You see A, then you see B. After hundred observations, when A occurs and then B occurs, you say: A is the cause of B. As you see, the relation between things is established by you.
And this because this is our mental way to perceive things.

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val,

you think that the laws of physics are all just in our imagination?

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A die is cast by will, falls by law, and faces up by chance.
In common sense, everything happens by law, chance, or will.

What none can predict happens by chance.
What many can predict happens by law.
What only one can predict happens by will.

To deny law is to deny the undeniable.
To deny will is to deny that life has meaning or purpose.
Chance is not a cause. It's a measure of ignorance.
What appears to be by chance is by unknown law or unknown actor.

Will is free, if will is.
If will were bound, it would be bound by law, but then would be by law, and not be will.

No one rationally chooses to believe that he does not have will, because to do so would be to choose to believe that he cannot choose.
If there were no will, it would not matter whether you believed the contrary.
If there is will, it would be foolish to believe there is no will.
Which way would you bet - your life?

Only an oracle that can predict every action could demonstrate the absence of will.
I haven't found one and neither have you.

Will drives the evolution of the universe, but no theory can admit it.
Theories require laws.
Will is revealed by their inadequacy.

SO, we are commanded to find causes and to cause but be uncaused.
We are commanded to prove there is no will and to exercise our wills to do so.
We are commanded to be free and freely accept commands to prove that we are free to refuse freedom.

When at last, the futility of the tasks reveal the WILLS OF SOULS that move all things,
we find behind them the MASTER OF THE SHOW:

Whose secret presence through creation's veins,
Running quicksilver-like eludes your pains,
Taking all shapes from mah to Mahi, they
Change and vanish all but He remains!
[/b]

This search for causes is a Holy cause.
It finds those who repeat - the dead - and uses them.
And in the end, when we accept that death is right, we slip away.
And become useful tools.

God hates predictability in the living.
They deny the gift of will.
So he makes Death its price.

God loves the dead.
Their predictability serves the power of the living and through theirs His.

You want power?
Make sure you are half dead and half alive!
Like God!

The reconciliation of law with will is a puzzle with several easy solutions,
but that would be off-topic.

It's better now to worry about other things.
There's really nothing more to be said about free will.

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stuh505 wrote:

quantum physics is the only place where concepts such as randomness are believed to be true

According to whom?

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Stuh
No, not in my imagination. Laws of physics are explanations we give to the reality, according to the way we can perceive and racionalize: an organized world.
But if you remain in the empiric level, you see that we are stimulated by an infinity of exterior stimulus, without any order or relation. We provide the world the relations and the order. And why? Because it is the only way we can think. We sense things in space and time, we sense and think of them as separed entities, but in mutual relation, etc. This is what I called our experience.

Now, imagine a snail. He too has is reality, his experience. Do you think it is the same as our?

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stuh505 wrote:

...but IF all of the information about everything in the universe was known, then anything could be predicted

How do you know that?

Isn't it at least possible that "randomness" is a part of the Ultimate REALITY...but we are not yet possessed of enough information to realize that?

And if you answer "NO" to that question...how do you know that?

Quote:

... the decisions that we make are not "pre-determined" so to speak (because nobody has decided what will happen) but they are predictable because there is only 1 possible linear chain of events for the future.

The only rational way to disagree is to believe in magic or God.

That is the ONLY rational way to disagree????

I don't "believe" in God or in magic...yet I just did disagree. And I like to think it was a logical, rational disagreement.

Do you disagree?

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Frank: I always thought of 'predictions' to be guesses based on probability, so, if that's also stuh's POV, then you're in agreement. when we roll the dice, if we know all the laws of physics(wind velocity, density of palm that's rolling, resistivity of the table you roll it on, etc.) then we gain a much better insight into what will probably happen. Of course, one could make the argument that, at this level of knowledge, it isn't really 'random' anymore, but still. Was that what you meant, stuh?
stuh: I'm going to have to side with Frank on the 'magic' issue; that is in no way rational; in fact, magic by definition is irrational. Also, once you take the randomness factor in, there's still always that unpredictability, not to mention free will...but that's another topic. :wink:

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Re: Free Will

~Rei+Ki ~ wrote:

I'm asking on a karmic, cosmic, universal, spiritual, religious,
humanity level ... what do you think about free will. do we have it?
is everything already written and we only have the choice to use it
for good or bad? do we have no choice in the outcomes at all?

FREE WILL IS ALWAYS IN CONFLICT WITH INSTINCT DESIRE ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN CULTURE

FREE WILL CANNOT OVERCOME THIRST OR HUNGER BECAUSE OF THE POWERFUL GRIP OF INNATE INSTINCT AND DESIRE

FREE WILL CANNOT PREVENT PHYSICAL HARM FROM EARTH WIND FIRE AND WATER IN EARTHS ATMOSPHERE

FREE WILL IS NOT AS FREE AS SOME WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE

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Re: Free Will

-I-1-2-No-U- wrote:

~Rei+Ki ~ wrote:
I'm asking on a karmic, cosmic, universal, spiritual, religious,
humanity level ... what do you think about free will. do we have it?
is everything already written and we only have the choice to use it
for good or bad? do we have no choice in the outcomes at all?

FREE WILL IS ALWAYS IN CONFLICT WITH INSTINCT DESIRE ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN CULTURE

FREE WILL CANNOT OVERCOME THIRST OR HUNGER BECAUSE OF THE POWERFUL GRIP OF INNATE INSTINCT AND DESIRE

FREE WILL CANNOT PREVENT PHYSICAL HARM FROM EARTH WIND FIRE AND WATER IN EARTHS ATMOSPHERE

FREE WILL IS NOT AS FREE AS SOME WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE

Stop shouting! You're making my ears ring!

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it appears that we make our decisions in life on a personal decision basis;
these choices obviously affected by a myriad of innate, and learned behavioural pressures that basically make us who we are [even while our efforts to allude many of thes pressures will, eventually make us who we 'become'!].

If, in spite of the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to show it, there is actually a complete 'programme' for existence; produced, and monitored by 'whomever', then it is not readily apparent to those of us 'acting out' the script, so we may as well all proceed as if there were no such constraint in place regardless.

[in other words it basically doesn't matter!]

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Frank wrote:

Quote:

Stop shouting! You're making my ears ring!

I wrote: HA! Hilarious!
NO-U: I can see your point about our behaviors being modified by external environment and physical laws...but please stop typing all caps...it makes it hard to tell which words should be emphasized, and only serves to cloud your point. Otherwise...glad to have you on board.

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I want to know you (welcome btw); i don't see any logic in your comment:

"FREE WILL IS ALWAYS IN CONFLICT WITH INSTINCT DESIRE ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN CULTURE"

while, i agree it is often not served by 'instinct', why would free will be seen as contrary to your own 'desire'; the needs of the 'environment', or the course of 'human culture'?

[?]

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First: define free will. Seriously, everyone define what they think is free will.

Quote:

FREE WILL CANNOT OVERCOME THIRST OR HUNGER BECAUSE OF THE POWERFUL GRIP OF INNATE INSTINCT AND DESIRE

Not so. We overcome our desire everyday. From the desire to get back to sleep, to the desire of staying at home all day.
If you look at those people who are meditating in solitary confinement, etc, they're overcoming their innate desires.

Desire is not as great as you make it sound.
We can limit it and we do because sometimes it is harmful.
We limit our consumption of food for example.
So what limits our desire? What can possibly overcome even the basic desires for what we need?
It is our rational capacity.

Here's what I think is free will.
Sure, we are not completely free from everything, because that would be nothingness. We do however have a capacity to choose. Sure, desires might affect our decision, but we can choose to be free from those desires if it is not what we think is "right". Thus, our reason provides us with the capacity to choose certain things. It is limited with how much we know and how much makes sense to us. You can call that as something other than free will then, but here's the thing: All those factors that are within us, is at that time, isn't it, a part of our thoughts? If those things are a part of our mind then we are still choosing. Thus we are not being forced to do certain things, we are choosing for what we think is right, and so that is free will.

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Ray wrote:

First: define free will. Seriously, everyone define what they think is free will.

Quote:
FREE WILL CANNOT OVERCOME THIRST OR HUNGER BECAUSE OF THE POWERFUL GRIP OF INNATE INSTINCT AND DESIRE

Not so. We overcome our desire everyday. From the desire to get back to sleep, to the desire of staying at home all day.
If you look at those people who are meditating in solitary confinement, etc, they're overcoming their innate desires.

Desire is not as great as you make it sound.
We can limit it and we do because sometimes it is harmful.
We limit our consumption of food for example.
So what limits our desire? What can possibly overcome even the basic desires for what we need?
It is our rational capacity.

Here's what I think is free will.
Sure, we are not completely free from everything, because that would be nothingness. We do however have a capacity to choose. Sure, desires might affect our decision, but we can choose to be free from those desires if it is not what we think is "right". Thus, our reason provides us with the capacity to choose certain things. It is limited with how much we know and how much makes sense to us. You can call that as something other than free will then, but here's the thing: All those factors that are within us, is at that time, isn't it, a part of our thoughts? If those things are a part of our mind then we are still choosing. Thus we are not being forced to do certain things, we are choosing for what we think is right, and so that is free will.

Good post, Ray.

One of the things I suspect about the concept "free will" is that no matter what it actually means...

...it is a devise used by Christians (and other theists) to explain many of the inconsistencies about their "GOD" "beliefs."

Ever notice how often Christians throw "...because GOD wants us to have free will" into conversations about their God?

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Free Will

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