Does free will exist?

[Loonyyy]

Of course we have free will. But it isn't paramount. We have needs and external pressures as well. Will just decides how we make decisions, and what we decide is most important in the wants and interests category. I'd suggest that the whole thing is characterised best by Maslow's hierachy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs .

 

[LarenzoAOG]

My god, for a bit I thought that all the angsty post had dissapeared, now this.

OT: Yup, I chose to post, I chose to let the dog get on my bed, I chose to eat this pizza, I chose to hold the pizza with the left hand so I can type with the right, nuff said?

 

[DaftPivot XXX]

You can control my body and my mind but there is one thing a Saiyan always has....HIS PRIDE!!!
Also I believe the question is moot because I don't think any of our impudent minds are capable of processing such a question. It's like what happens after I die? What is the meaning of life? Does chicken really taste like chicken!?

 

[neurohazzard]

I'm a follower of determinism, but I believe we need to act as if we have free will otherwise the structure of human society will fall apart.

I believe we have free will, though admittedly having no way to prove it. However, I believe free will is something we have to choose to use, and a lot of the time we default back to determinism.

I'm pretty sure the arguments of hardline free will and hardline determinism are mutually exclusive. You can't 'fall back' on determinism - if it is the correct theory then all actions are governed by what has already occurred, and free will is impossible.


Edit: Annoying how many people come to a post about a philisophical question just to say 'it doesn't matter'.

I can, and indeed will declare that the two are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps determinism is the wrong word, "nature" perhaps, but I firmly believe that just as there is an art and a science to everything, including art and science, the human mind can contain both.

What does art and science have to do with it? We're talking about all your actions being measurable responses determined by the environment. I'm not even sure where the basis for free will lies, maybe you can explain. Why should there be such a thing?

I was using a metaphor. But like I said, I have no way to prove free will exists, it's just something that I believe in, and since we don't fully understand the nature of consciousness, I'll continue to believe in it. However I believe we do also have an environmental nature that we default to whenever we are not actively using our free will. We have the free will to choose to use our free will or not I suppose you could say.

 

[joshuaayt]

As I understand it, our reactions are dynamic- in that they are affected by a number of variables (Memories, current situation, behavioral predisposition) but we cannot change the way we will act ourselves.

Suppose I saw my sister dangling off a cliff: My fond memories of time with her are cross-referenced with my learned benevolence, and the correct electron transfers occur in my brain, the result being my body pulling hers to safety.

There was no way I could, under those exact circumstances, decide to not save her. There is only one course of action available at any given time- just like chemicals will react A particular way under specific circumstances. You can't put sodium and chlorine together and make gold.

Or, suppose I had spent like 30 minutes thinking about a forum post. There is no way I could possibly decide to not do... whatever it is I end up doing. I don't actually know for sure what that is yet.

EDIT: Ah, see? I did it, but I could not *not* do it.

 

[Supertask]

Certainly yes. Of course we are bound by physical laws. If you sit on a tack you're going to bleed from the ass. But we do not live in a deterministic universe, we live in a probabilistic one.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle implies that the world is not nearly as deterministic as Newton and Einstein had thought. Determinism isn't dead but is hasn't as much evidence in its favor as Probability. Free will is wining the argument in physics circles.

I can't for the life of me understand why so many people on both sides of the "Free Will" debate continue to consider the deterministic nature or lack thereof of the universe somehow important. What does it matter if the universe is probabilistic? How am I any more free if my decisions are determined by a random variable? All debates on free will seem to become debates about whether or not the universe is deterministic, with neither side seeing that this is irrelevent.