Poll: Free will and our mental processes.

[mistahzig1]

We are slaves to our biology, environment and time.

ALL options/choices are available through these pressures.

BIOLOGY: We can choose our types of mates, but it's our bodies that FORCES us to be attracted to others. We can choose which videogame we want to play, but it's our bodies that FORCES us to want to best obstacles and climb up the social hierarchy (in such a case, through proxy, but basically it's still the same).


ENVIRONMENT: How we grow up, through our experiences, the choices we make are defined by them. Each event in our lives pushes us in one direction or other and ends up offering relevant "choices" based on that. A child living in a war-torned country doesn't have the same choices as another who lives elsewhere for instance


TIME: Could someone have chosen to like videogames if he/she lived 500 years ago? Choices are dependent of any given time to just simply... exist.

****

So, free will? Yeah, I guess. If by free choice you mean being in a room with a hundred doors available to open, but not choosing one means you'll starve to death and seeing another hundred doors, which are locked.

So to me, free will, being limited in such ways, cannot be truly called "free will".

Maybe that's why I'm an absurdist (Sisyphus and all that)

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

We just have the illusion of freewill. As Arkasai already said we're living in either a deterministic system or a indeterministic system, thus true freewill doesn't exist.
It's all action-reaction.

The reason you choose X is already predetermined by everything that happened to you in the past up to the moment you "make" that decision. Your mood, your genes, your preferences, your expiriences all just a bunch of predetermined factors.

So nope. No freewill.

 

[Bertylicious]

We are slaves to our biology, environment and time.

ALL options/choices are available through these pressures.

BIOLOGY: We can choose our types of mates, but it's our bodies that FORCES us to be attracted to others. We can choose which videogame we want to play, but it's our bodies that FORCES us to want to best obstacles and climb up the social hierarchy (in such a case, through proxy, but basically it's still the same).


ENVIRONMENT: How we grow up, through our experiences, the choices we make are defined by them. Each event in our lives pushes us in one direction or other and ends up offering relevant "choices" based on that. A child living in a war-torned country doesn't have the same choices as another who lives elsewhere for instance


TIME: Could someone have chosen to like videogames if he/she lived 500 years ago? Choices are dependent of any given time to just simply... exist.

****

So, free will? Yeah, I guess. If by free choice you mean being in a room with a hundred doors available to open, but not choosing one means you'll starve to death and seeing another hundred doors, which are locked.

So to me, free will, being limited in such ways, cannot be truly called "free will".

Maybe that's why I'm an absurdist (Sisyphus and all that)

I dunno mate. I mean like; what if your experiences and biology and situations you are in are the components of your free will rather than the limitations of it? So if you had no experiences, say we wellied you in the melon and you forget everything and went fully Helen Keller, then you would still have consiousness, even if it was proper rubbish consiousness. I reckon it'd make sense that you could still make decisions based on your own internal thoughts, though them thoughts wouldn't be in words or images anymore.

I guess what I'm saying is that experiences, biology and situations are seperate from free will and don't actually have nothing to do with one another.

 

[Saulkar]

I dunno. I keep hearing theories about physics and how everything is just a series of linear events that will play out in a set path. All momentum of the big bang knocking over the first domino. One little brain game that I play however is a proposition.

What if we were to build a computer powerful enough to model the future perfectly due to an advanced understanding of quantum physics? If we were able to do that could we not use this information to go against what was already predetermined or was the creation of the computer, all that it predicted, and how we react to it in and of itself predetermined as well?

Furthermore what if everything we did to go against what the computer predicted altered said predictions and our conscious knowledge of what it had originally predicted as well and thus we would never know something had changed?

ARGH!!! MAH BRAIN!

 

[mistahzig1]

I dunno mate. I mean like; what if your experiences and biology and situations you are in are the components of your free will rather than the limitations of it? So if you had no experiences, say we wellied you in the melon and you forget everything and went fully Helen Keller, then you would still have consiousness, even if it was proper rubbish consiousness. I reckon it'd make sense that you could still make decisions based on your own internal thoughts, though them thoughts wouldn't be in words or images anymore.

I guess what I'm saying is that experiences, biology and situations are seperate from free will and don't actually have nothing to do with one another.

These choices would be *limited* by my lack of knowledge. I wouldn't want to listen of music simply because I wouldn't know it existed.

I think that consciousness and free will are not completely related imo.


I like to use the example of the 40 something virgins in paradise some people believe in. I never understood that belief. What would a hypothetical SOUL, devoid of ANY biological urges that our bodies impose upon us want to do with a harem or any kind?

This serves as an example of how biology restricts (or rather, dictates) our "free" will in choices available to us.

 

[WoW Killer]

Free will to me is:
1. What results in someone being 'responsible' for one's actions, in a cosmic sense. I.e. nothing outside themselves caused them to do what they did.

Surely that immediately excludes any forms of cognition whatsoever. Part of our thought process is based on sensory inputs and our past experiences; these are external factors. Why define free will in a way that is automatically false?

 

[beyondbrainmatter]

What is your opinion on whether we have free will or not?

While it's impossible to find out if we have free will on an ontological level, we actually do have free will on a functional level. Think voluntary bodily actions and functions like willing to move a limb, or being potty trained (lol. Account for that one, determinists!).

What does this say about how your mind works?

?

For fairness I'll have a go.

"Free will" to me, is the ability to form different decisions in the same set of circumstances.
Until recently I thought this was impossible on the grounds that the circumstances included the state of the person within them, and the general principle that the same things in the same states and circumstances did the same things.

However it has come to my attention that the underlying principle is flawed in its' lack of falsifiability:

No matter how many times you put something into the same state and circumstances, and it does the same thing, there is no confirmation that it will continue to do so, except the repetition itself, it'd be like saying "the sky is green because it is green".

You're confusing falsifiability with verification; the problem of induction only has a hold on verified claims, while a falsified claim is false forever. Well, according to Karl Popper in his "Conjectures and Refutations".

Indeed according to contemporary physics, one can't even fully ascertain the current state of an object, let alone what it will do.

If you're talking about Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, then you're talking about things on the quantum level, and there is a continuum break if you go down the rabbithole long enough. That means that conventional (macro) physics isn't applicable to the quantum level, and vice versa.

I noticed after someone said that free will was unfalsifiable, I didn't think it was because of my little "repetition" principle, which I then questioned the falsifiability of.

Free will can't be proven because we can't take a birds eye view of the human condition, because we are stuck in it. We can't test hypotheses regarding ontological claims, because our situation is immanent to the human condition and we can't transcend that. It's an inherent problem of any metaphysical claim, not just ones regarding free will/determinism.

 

[Arakasi]

Free will to me is:
1. What results in someone being 'responsible' for one's actions, in a cosmic sense. I.e. nothing outside themselves caused them to do what they did.

Surely that immediately excludes any forms of cognition whatsoever. Part of our thought process is based on sensory inputs and our past experiences; these are external factors. Why define free will in a way that is automatically false?

I don't know. I think its simply a remnant of the 'soul' era. But think of it this way, if free will is false, then it has to be defined in such a way that it is false. People will still argue for free will under that definition so take that for what you will.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

I cannot tell, mainly because how do 'we' even know what we think when we look at how we think
I used "we" Waaaaay too many times there.
I think free will is one of those things that everyone has an opinion on, yet no one actually understands fully.

Anyone can say that about basically anything. Unless of course, you have an argument for it, perhaps something pointing out a paradox or problem in the reasoning of those posting, this form of argument is elitist (see xkcd [https://xkcd.com/774/] comic) and a fallacy.

I was going to say that the comic itself was kinda hypocritical in that matter, and it's entirely possible to have no opinion on a subject without feeling superior.
I say I don't know if there's free will because I legitimately don't, I'm not being high and mighty or anything. I've read up on it, had people talk to me about it (both ways) and still haven't a clue. We don't even know if everyone thinks the same way, or if someone with severe OCD has free will to the same degree as someone who doesn't, or if either of those is immaterial and we're all just a simulation for some....thing.

There was no elitism meant in my comment, it was a declaration of ignorance. Sorry if it seemed otherwise.

 

[Arakasi]

I cannot tell, mainly because how do 'we' even know what we think when we look at how we think
I used "we" Waaaaay too many times there.
I think free will is one of those things that everyone has an opinion on, yet no one actually understands fully.

Anyone can say that about basically anything. Unless of course, you have an argument for it, perhaps something pointing out a paradox or problem in the reasoning of those posting, this form of argument is elitist (see xkcd [https://xkcd.com/774/] comic) and a fallacy.

I was going to say that the comic itself was kinda hypocritical in that matter, and it's entirely possible to have no opinion on a subject without feeling superior.
I say I don't know if there's free will because I legitimately don't, I'm not being high and mighty or anything. I've read up on it, had people talk to me about it (both ways) and still haven't a clue. We don't even know if everyone thinks the same way, or if someone with severe OCD has free will to the same degree as someone who doesn't, or if either of those is immaterial and we're all just a simulation for some....thing.

There was no elitism meant in my comment, it was a declaration of ignorance. Sorry if it seemed otherwise.

Okay, but isn't saying 'I don't understand it therefore no one does either' a problematic argument? I'm pretty sure I understand the concept of 'free will' fully, I'd like to know why you think I don't.

 

[Yopaz]

Honestly, I find the whole discussion pointless because it all boils down to how we define it. You can define it in ways to make it clear you have free will and give reasons to why it is so. You can use the same definition and explain why you don't have free will.

It's a philosophical discussion which basically assumes the possibility to define an abstract concept. Free will is a human concept

Maybe humans have free will, maybe we don't, what difference does it make? You know what we do have? Brownies. Now I am going to make some this weekend because I chose to do so. It may not be me proving that I've got free will, but who cares? The brownies taste just as good.

 

[Piorn]

I have a Will, and it factors in things beyond my control, e.g. reality or my bodily needs, so it is not completely under my control, and thus not technically "free".
On the other hand, since I can never be in the same situation with the same state of mind twice due to things like memories or just general experience, I can not judge if my "Will" is deterministic or some kind of propabilistic etc.
And because I have no reason to believe I am fundamentally different than any other thinking human, whatever counts for me must count for everyone.

So, something, I guess? Who knows?

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

I cannot tell, mainly because how do 'we' even know what we think when we look at how we think
I used "we" Waaaaay too many times there.
I think free will is one of those things that everyone has an opinion on, yet no one actually understands fully.

Anyone can say that about basically anything. Unless of course, you have an argument for it, perhaps something pointing out a paradox or problem in the reasoning of those posting, this form of argument is elitist (see xkcd [https://xkcd.com/774/] comic) and a fallacy.

I was going to say that the comic itself was kinda hypocritical in that matter, and it's entirely possible to have no opinion on a subject without feeling superior.
I say I don't know if there's free will because I legitimately don't, I'm not being high and mighty or anything. I've read up on it, had people talk to me about it (both ways) and still haven't a clue. We don't even know if everyone thinks the same way, or if someone with severe OCD has free will to the same degree as someone who doesn't, or if either of those is immaterial and we're all just a simulation for some....thing.

There was no elitism meant in my comment, it was a declaration of ignorance. Sorry if it seemed otherwise.

Okay, but isn't saying 'I don't understand it therefore no one does either' a problematic argument? I'm pretty sure I understand the concept of 'free will' fully, I'd like to know why you think I don't.

It is my opinion (notice i'm saying this first to detract from the rest of my point) that no one understands anything fully because understanding something fully is...well...yeah.
To claim complete knowledge about something in a world with so many ideas and variables popping up all the time is just a far stretch.
I don't think you understand the [i/]intricacies[/i] of free will, the opinions held on it and such and such any more than I do, or anymore than someone understands what 'blue' is.
But I digress, I'm not a philosopher and typing this out has caused my toast to burn and now the kitchen is all smoky.
Darn free will and it's consequences.

 

[Mr. Charles]

For me its a matter of faith. You either believe in free-will that you have control over your actions within the limits of your physicality (I will accept that your prior history and surroundings will affect your decessions but it does not necesarily pre-ordane them) or you believe that we have no free will - for me this is an aceptance that there is a higher power that is exersisng control over us. Call it what you want God, Gods or just some infintely complex machine, even if you just call it dominoes (what started the dominoes and why) - therfore there has to be some prupose to its actions - that's my 2 cents anyway

 

[Haukur Isleifsson]

I can't remember who it was, maybe Daniel Dennet, who said that free will could indeed exist if our actions are in some way determined by the actions of sub-atomic particles. Since these don't seem to follow the deterministic principles of Newtonian physics. But even if we accept that we could argue that our choices aren't "free" but rather "random".

I think I will continue to act as if determinism was a fair description of our world regardless. In most instances it doesn't really matter anyway.

 

[Arakasi]

I cannot tell, mainly because how do 'we' even know what we think when we look at how we think
I used "we" Waaaaay too many times there.
I think free will is one of those things that everyone has an opinion on, yet no one actually understands fully.

Anyone can say that about basically anything. Unless of course, you have an argument for it, perhaps something pointing out a paradox or problem in the reasoning of those posting, this form of argument is elitist (see xkcd [https://xkcd.com/774/] comic) and a fallacy.

I was going to say that the comic itself was kinda hypocritical in that matter, and it's entirely possible to have no opinion on a subject without feeling superior.
I say I don't know if there's free will because I legitimately don't, I'm not being high and mighty or anything. I've read up on it, had people talk to me about it (both ways) and still haven't a clue. We don't even know if everyone thinks the same way, or if someone with severe OCD has free will to the same degree as someone who doesn't, or if either of those is immaterial and we're all just a simulation for some....thing.

There was no elitism meant in my comment, it was a declaration of ignorance. Sorry if it seemed otherwise.

Okay, but isn't saying 'I don't understand it therefore no one does either' a problematic argument? I'm pretty sure I understand the concept of 'free will' fully, I'd like to know why you think I don't.

It is my opinion (notice i'm saying this first to detract from the rest of my point) that no one understands anything fully because understanding something fully is...well...yeah.

...What?
Say I say the claim: A = A.
This is a true statement, it cannot be anything but a true statement by definition. A is a variable that can mean anything. What else could there possibly be to understand?

To claim complete knowledge about something in a world with so many ideas and variables popping up all the time is just a far stretch.

I don't claim to have complete knowledge about how 'free will' is used everywhere, I claim that one (or more) of its most popular definitions is wrong by necessity. And about that particular statement, there is nothing I do not know.

I don't think you understand the [i/]intricacies[/i] of free will, the opinions held on it and such and such any more than I do, or anymore than someone understands what 'blue' is.

What intricacies are there? It is a term, it has a definition, that definition makes the term false by reality. That's pretty much all there is to it. It's an analytic/tautological argument, just like A = A.

But I digress, I'm not a philosopher

I am, in a manner of speaking.

and typing this out has caused my toast to burn and now the kitchen is all smoky.
Darn free will and it's consequences.

And that is one of the most annoying and weak things to say at the end of an argument involving free will.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

I cannot tell, mainly because how do 'we' even know what we think when we look at how we think
I used "we" Waaaaay too many times there.
I think free will is one of those things that everyone has an opinion on, yet no one actually understands fully.

Anyone can say that about basically anything. Unless of course, you have an argument for it, perhaps something pointing out a paradox or problem in the reasoning of those posting, this form of argument is elitist (see xkcd [https://xkcd.com/774/] comic) and a fallacy.

I was going to say that the comic itself was kinda hypocritical in that matter, and it's entirely possible to have no opinion on a subject without feeling superior.
I say I don't know if there's free will because I legitimately don't, I'm not being high and mighty or anything. I've read up on it, had people talk to me about it (both ways) and still haven't a clue. We don't even know if everyone thinks the same way, or if someone with severe OCD has free will to the same degree as someone who doesn't, or if either of those is immaterial and we're all just a simulation for some....thing.

There was no elitism meant in my comment, it was a declaration of ignorance. Sorry if it seemed otherwise.

Okay, but isn't saying 'I don't understand it therefore no one does either' a problematic argument? I'm pretty sure I understand the concept of 'free will' fully, I'd like to know why you think I don't.

It is my opinion (notice i'm saying this first to detract from the rest of my point) that no one understands anything fully because understanding something fully is...well...yeah.

...What?
Say I say the claim: A = A.
This is a true statement, it cannot be anything but a true statement by definition. A is a variable that can mean anything. What else could there possibly be to understand?

To claim complete knowledge about something in a world with so many ideas and variables popping up all the time is just a far stretch.

I don't claim to have complete knowledge about how 'free will' is used everywhere, I claim that one (or more) of its most popular definitions is wrong by necessity. And about that particular statement, there is nothing I do not know.

I don't think you understand the [i/]intricacies[/i] of free will, the opinions held on it and such and such any more than I do, or anymore than someone understands what 'blue' is.

What intricacies are there? It is a term, it has a definition, that definition makes the term false by reality. That's pretty much all there is to it. It's an analytic/tautological argument, just like A = A.

But I digress, I'm not a philosopher

I am, in a manner of speaking.

and typing this out has caused my toast to burn and now the kitchen is all smoky.
Darn free will and it's consequences.

And that is one of the most annoying and weak things to say at the end of an argument involving free will.

I must have made a mess of stating my opinion, because pretty much everything you said there doesn't address it.
And makes you seem a little bit arrogant.

What I was trying to say is that we as a species know so bloody little about anything that trying to state a definite answer can be drawn down by nitpicking and arguing over the terminology.
Neither of us are going to change our opinion, and I don't know about you, but I'm not enjoying this 'debate' (I hate to use that term since it seems pretentious and false when used most times) so I think I'll bid you adieu and take the dog for a walk.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

It depends on your point of view, do you believe we live in a deterministic universe or a chaotic one?

If we are living in a deterministic universe then no, true free will can not exist. If a universe is deterministic then with enough information and processing power you can predict the interactions of every particle within such a universe. What is thought but the biochemical and electrochemical interactions in our brin? Even if the results of such produce an illusion of free will then it is just that, an illusion.

If we live in a chaotic universe then free will could well exist as even with infinite information and unlimited processing power it would be impossible to predict the outcome of every interaction the results would produce an indication of general trends and may be able to predict the outcome of many events but the chaotic nature of the universe would preclude compleet accuracy.

 

[T3hSource]

I usually let paradoxes just be, since I am one really. I do not try to define something which has no materialistic form, because it can be molded to any desire, wish, mindset and much much more.

Do I have free will? -Sure, I like to think that.
Do you really have free will? -Maybe, maybe not.
What is free will then? -The ability to think for yourself, by yourself, or something along those lines.
How do you think like that? -By detaching from the world and all its values and 'transcending' to a higher perspective if I may say so, but again we are only human.