Free Will

hmm... This free will stuff is getting on my nerves .

Okay, first what am "I"? "I" can only exist when there is a rational capacity present (at least that's my hypothesis). Now, since the "I" is a product of events in the universe that occured before me, then "I" am making the choice, not the choice is made "for me".

I might have emotions, but I can choose not to act on those emotions if I don't see fit. Now what makes me choose to not act on a certain emotion in the first place? Because I might not think that it's "right" to act on that emotion. Thus, "I" am choosing something.

But there was no way you couldve "chosen" another way. There was only one way you could have chosen. Because you made your decision based on things. Your decision wasn't random. You had a reason for it. And that reason was fed to you by the outside... the universe. So the fact that you have "chosen" means only that "you" have acted in the same way as any other system in the universe acts... you respond to stimuli according to the laws of the universe.

Yeah, it wasn't "random", it was directed at something. I am part of the universe, not outside of the universe. I don't think "choosing" requires randomness. Is this getting toward semantics?

In my mind there are three processes before a thoughtful action, reasoning -> choice -> will. People can't think of themselves as fed up by the universe because that would disrupt the process of reasoning.

I'll think more about this one.

maybe this is relevant:

Try to make up a random thought. Whatever you think of, it will be because something made you think of that and not something else. That something is what is relevant. That something is what makes your decision on what to "randomly" think of inevitable. There's nothing else you could have thought of first. Because whatever that something was that made you think of what you thought of first first... was, due to the configuration of your head area at the time, the only something that could possibly have arisen as your first "random" thought.

Binny

But thoughts are not mere prints left in the brain by external stimulus.
With our perception and rationalization we give an organisation to those stimulus. It is us who gave those stimulus a configuration and it's laws.

I remember, from another topic, that you like ants. Do you think that ants react to external stimulus the same way we do? That their representation of the "world" is the same as ours?

This is a general statement that has some loose ends that I'll try to pin down. In our previous example of thinking of a "random" thought, the stimulus you mean here is the statement made by me, "Think of a random thought." And in the sense of this stimulus, you are right... your brain does more than make a print of this stimulus. As you go on to state, we use our "perception and rationalization" to organize and analyze this stimulus and react to it. But, as our "rationalization" makes use of all (or at least some) of our previous thoughts and is completely limited by these previous thoughts and has access to nothing else, and as our "perception" is but the means of making thoughts out of stimuli, it seems clear that even though thoughts are not mere prints left by stimuli, they are nonetheless results of stimuli and of no other faculty or facility.

Do ants react the same way as we do to stimuli? Of course not. Clearly, though, ants react to stimuli. In fact, this simple concept of cause and effect is much more apparent in them. It is clear that their reactions are almost entirely inherited in their DNA. In go stimuli, and out come responses. And these responses will be very predictable. Because they don't reason that much. If they were more like people, and they "reasoned" all the time, we would have to look more closely, and say, "well this ant answered this stimulus this way and not another way because as a baby ant it lost a leg to a bigger ant. So now it is much more careful around soldier ants. And also, it likes to make three steps to the left when it sees that particular ant right there. So it just so happened that it "reasoned out" its very peculiar answer to the question of exactly how it should react to this stimulus." So you see, if ants reasoned, we would just have to look more closely, and analyze the whys and wherefores of the decisions. And we would find that there is a reason, or there are a million reasons, or a billion, or whatever number of reasons, that this ant chose this way. And some of those whys and wherefores will be from inside that ant. But these from inside were once on the outside. Because there was a time that that ant didn't even exist. That ant was created molecule by molecule, and organization of every aspect was given to it by the outside; by the universe.
Is the ant's representation of the world the same as ours? Of course not. Is the world still there and constant? Yes. Is the ant still there and constant? Yes. So what difference does it make that their representation of the world is skewed and incomplete, as is ours?

binny

I agree with you. But the reason of my previous reply was the fact that I understood that you said that human reason is subjected to the same physical laws that are applied to the universe.
If this was the case, I disagree, not only in the question of the mind, but also in the concept of law. But that is, I realize it, out of the present topic.

Yes binny, in the end, there can only be one outcome. However, this does not eliminate the hypothetical future that a mind has looked at when analyzing what to choose. The mind is the outcome of universal interactions, but it still does not mean that it's not choosing, no matter how limited the knowledge and understanding is. "Free Will" in this case does exist because the mind is choosing freely and is not choosing what it does not think is there to choose.

val, what I mean to say is that human reason is just another aspect of the physical laws of the universe. When you say "human reason", don't you mean the means by which we make decisions? And if this is the case, is this not simply by making the decision based on which thoughts are accessible and among these, based on which one or ones is/are most dominant? And is this not completely determined already either by the present immediate environment or by past experiences? So are our decisions not made simply by doing exactly as we must? Which is to say, by following the laws of the universe?


I agree. It doesn't eliminate this. This hypothetical future exists... as a thought. That is what it is... a thought. As such it is in your head and takes the form of a finite whole number of molecules and their positions/momenta/properties. Just like any other thought, it got there by your experiences and your faculty of perception and possibly by interactions with other thoughts in the "faculty of reason" (this is the only aspect of the "faculty of reason"... the interaction of thoughts). Since any notion you have of the future is only a thought, this means its source is either directly from perception of the environment, or its source is an interaction with other thoughts that are born of perception, or its source is an interaction with other thoughts that are born of "reason", which is to say that its source is an interaction with other thoughts whose sources are interactions with other thoughts; but these thoughts are either perceptions or "reasoned" thoughts as well. And as you continue, you will eventually find that at the bottom of all reasoned thoughts are perceived thoughts.
And so, at the basis of our theory of the future is our perception at some point in the past and/or present. So when you say our minds are "choosing freely" between the futures we believe may be the results of our actions, we are in fact only bringing the most relevent (and/or most easily/readily accessible) thoughts together (and this assembled collection includes the perception-spawned theory of the future) and forming the only thought(s) that can possibly be formed from this particular collection of specific thoughts. So it seems to me that calling this free in any sense is mistaken. But I'm probably wrong

humans have free will which is only limited by our physical capabilities. we can make free choices. just because God knows what we are going to do does not mean that all of a sudden we have no free will. if God knows we are going to do something he knows because he is timeless not because we did not make the choice ourselves. we make our own destiny by the choices we make. if i choose to do something now, then I HAVE FIXED MY OWN DESTINY FOR THE 'ME' IN THE PAST.

Would defining "Free Will" and then debating who is in possession of it help us in clarifying or pinning down this mentally slippery concept?

If so, given Free Will's definition, do all mammals have it? Birds? Fish? Ants? Bacteria? Genes? Prions? I would suggest that any one of us could point to a specific form or entity and be able to say with confidence: "No, this is devoid of any Free Will whatsoever, it is merely an automaton".

This would point to Daniel C. Dennett's position that at some point, given ever increasing biological complexity, Free Will appears (No Magic needed here See DCD's "Freedom Evolves"). This observation can also be applied to consciousness and perhaps "Higher Intelligence". The result is greater than the sum of all parts, and all that.

This result or work, accomplished by evolution, gives us the honest source of free individual will and results in legitimate individual agency.

JM

nothing, but nothing, and nothing again is more than the sum of its parts.

If we're going to start somewhere and work on some axioms, that should be one of them.

i have had this debate on another sight and i came to the conclusion that free will is the term which is given to subcious logic in other words the definition which most people use (freedom to chose) is wrong

subconscious logic means that ower choice is controlled by different aspects eg past experionces society preferences and other people but if it is controlled then it is not free

an example

if you walk into a shop and you want to buy a cake there are three cakes on offer one is strawberry and costs £7 another is chocolate and costs £15 the third is peach and costs £30 you can choose any one

immediately your finacial situation eliminates a choice if for example you don't have a lot of money then you eliminate the £30 one if on the other hand you were able to spoil your self you would eliminate the £7 one then there are other people for example you have a guest that is allergic to chocolate then the chocolate one is eliminated then there is your own past experiences for example you had a Peach cake and it was full of mold then you wont buy that one

this happens almost instantly and it is always the case what ever you do why do boys play with cars and girls with dolls? cos since they were young they have been given only these type of toys and told that those are for them

Spawn

Free will doesn't necessarily mean incondicioned freedom of choice.We choose between different possibilities according to several reasons - our personality, social and economic situation, and many others.
The example you gave, shows exactly freedom of choice: you choose one of the cakes and discard the others according to reasons. You make a rational choice.

If free will was absolute, there would be no freedom. You see, if there were no reasons to choose one of the cakes - and those are not necessarily subconscious, you can think and debate yourself the advantages of choosing a certain cake instead of other - we would not have freedom of choice because there would be no real choice: you would stay in front of the cakes unable to choose one of them, because you wouldn't have any criteria to make an option.

Everything we've ever looked at seems to be bound by universal laws that never get broken. It seems odd that we assume simply because the very moment we can perceive a new smaller level of reality and can't instantly understand why it works that it's random.

I doubt randomness exists at all. Which means predetermination. Which means no free will.

Then again, I'm not 100%. Who knows, maybe there is free will. But I predict that there isn't.

I don't believe in free will, I believe in fate and destiny.. everything happens for a reason, free will doesn't fit into the equation there

this is another topic i think Crazielady420 this opens the question who writes fate and from that a thousand different arguments can irrupt an to val thats what i wanted to say that free will is actually a logical decision

Sorry If someones already said this, but I read about 2 pages and skipped ahead.

Free will is an illusion created by the fact we can't see the future/don't know the exact state of the current universe to pridict it.

The fact is that we do choose things, but since we only go through a point in time once, That is the only choice that is ever made at the time, so therefore it was the only choice, and you couldn't of chosen anything else, because you didn't, so the future is unchangable because you can't go to the past and change a decision you made. The future is just an unpredictable past that has yet to happen, and is just as unchangable as the past.

[quote="Jon-Hughes The future is just an unpredictable past that has yet to happen, and is just as unchangable as the past.[/quote]

No. You see the past as a linear chain of events because you are the reference. The past is your past, you are not out of time.
But that doesn't work with the futur, because you are not a reference to the futur. I mean, from your referencial perspective, the future has not happened yet. The number of possibilities, that open themselves other possibilities is infinite.
You cannot see the futur as if it was a "past that has yet to happen", because you are the only reference, and to you the past has happened, the futur is open to every possibility (according the initial conditions of the system you are considering).
Futur is not only "unpredictable": it is like a door that opens to new doors, that opens to new doors and so on. Given initial conditions - regarding you as reference - many things can happen, just because they are possible.

I've not read all, but there seems to be no stand-alone definition for "free will" present so I thought I might put one forward:
The ability to choose any at all of the moral options available in a given situation.
One possessed of that ability could certainly be considered to have an unfettered possibly even causal nature. Wouldn't you agree?