Free anything never mind free will

[Martin lambertParticipant]

If you were told you buy 1 you get 1 free you would understand it wasn’t becouse you must by the first thing if you were told you were free but couldn’t do something you wanted or believed in you would understand you wasnt free as a person. nothing is free because everything costs something . free will ?????? People are asking for evidence to prove that we don’t have it, yet don’t have anything other than a belief inside them to that they do and then come out with deluded simple logics to prove it. What gives us are beliefs are likes dislikes are sence of morality other than what we learn ten threw surviving then supports them, its are ability to think rationally that gives us are most moral will but people cloud it with emotion and unwilling to understand what they can’t comprehend because it attacks their being there no longer special unique yet that is not relevant as none of us can be exactly the same but we can all be special even brilliant. If someone has learnt threw life that negative decisions come out with positive outcomes threw a series of electrical chemical stimulate will strengthen that neurological link it becoumse there survival their being they will believe there right and telling them isn’t going to change it they may rationally agree but there need to survive mate ect comes before there rational thoughts Its because I don’t believe in religion free will bullshit that 1day maybe my will will be free unlikely tho we might also find God or space monkeys I have become a true believer in not having free will because it don’t ad up or make sence and I have more control over my emotions feelings then I severe have I came from a bad back ground of crime among other things and can finally c y I did I can remember the things that influenced me and make me believe I was wright and most of it was for warmth and food I feel real control of myself for the first time in my life when you feel them urges from your gut to your amigdilla stop them and lough don’t let emotions or feelings of grandeur cloud your ability to think logically or rationally p.s. down with socialism and capatlism an I miss cristopher hitchens hope you’re doing okay were you are if you are what’s the point lol

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Something inside my head is in control of what I do, subject to what’s possible to do in reality. Belief in Free Will is handy when it comes to planning, taking action, taking responsibility for and being held responsible for one’s own actions, and so on; it becomes a delusion when people think that their mind or consciousness will exist even after their brain dies.

[SteveInCOParticipant]

it becomes a delusion when people think that their mind or consciousness will exist even after their brain dies.

There’s nothing inherent in the concept of free will that says that that will must survive, disembodied, after death.

Rather, I suspect it’s people who believed in an afterlife already who decided later on to make the claim that Xianity is all about free will. (Albeit with a gun to one’s head.)

[Ron HParticipant]

Any one ever watch the series “Closer to Truth” on pbs? Had an interesting discussion of the existence or non-esistence of free will. One of the silliest statements made by a proponent of free will was that free will applied only to “future” events (his word) and not to decisions in the moment. I wanted to shout at him that all events are future events, even if only by a nano second.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Rather, I suspect it’s people who believed in an afterlife already who decided later on to make the claim that Xianity is all about free will.

True.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

One of the silliest statements made by a proponent of free will was that free will applied only to “future” events…

I haven’t seen the program, but I think it makes sense in an important context. The more time one has to plan and rehearse, the more one is able to change the future. Whether it’s a delusion or not, when I have the feeling of Free Will, it’s in the context of what my ability is to change my own behavior and/or influence future reality. No matter how the agency is defined, it will always be “me” who I’m talking about.

This is why I emphasize that the problem of defining Free Will goes off the rails into non-reality or supernatural context, when it demands or implies such nonsense as continuation of self or “soul” after body death, or perhaps beliefs in the possibility of out of body experiences. Otherwise, for any kind of reasonable scientific reality, Free Will can only be reasonably defined as a “feeling” we have about our own agency or natural powers.

[DavisModerator]

We are not in a position yet to claim that free will does not exist nor that it is impossible…let alone with a reasonable level of certainty. We barely have an accepted model/understanding of cognition. The so called test which shows that our mind makes decisions before we are aware of it is deeply flawed and yet still remains one of the key arguments anti-free-will philosophers make. Such a test is bound to fail because a decision is the culmination of many smaller decisions made before we are even presented with a choice (to hit a button or not) and no tests that have been done has ever dealt with the amount of variables involved. As Raymond Tallis has argued in several books: That fact that you agreed to do an experiment is but one of the many variables that play a fundamental part in making a decision (made during the experiment)…but we do not record any data during that moment one agrees to take part in an experiment and thus we lack pretty important information on how the decision is ultimately formed (made?).

There are several reasonable tentative theories of how free will is possible without invoking an Aristotilian/Aquinas-like soul and still deterministic (weak or strong). Daniel Dennet and Mark Blaguer have both presented their own (rather different) tentative theories and have thoroughly criticised every notable argument that supports the “impossibility of free will”.

Here Dennett responds to Sam Harris’s little book on Free Will. Here is a rather scant summary of Mark Blaguer’s work on free will. And a small article on Hofstadter (I cannot find a better or more detailed article on him that isn’t excessively long).

I am always surprised by those who say with such confidence that there is free will or that free will cannot exist…considering the sea of ignorance we are stranded in per cognitive-science (including neuroscience) and considering how tentative all relevant theories are (tentative theories of free will or tentative theories on the impossibility of free will).

On free will…we are still in the stone age.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by  Davis.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by  Davis.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

I see lots of stuff written about it, but where is any concise definition of Free Will? I can only think of a few sources from which one can draw any potentially credible definition or conclusions, and unfortunately, those sources cannot agree.

Christian: It’s a divine gift that incurs personal responsibility and accountability.

Philosopher: Geez, I dunno, I think you have to read dozens of papers just to realize that its philosophical definition isn’t ready for prime time.

Science: Undefined. Period. For now, and for some time to come.

Me: I know it when I feel it. But I cannot speak for you, except to say that I know you should be held accountable for your actions, given due process with a jury of your peers.

There is one source (above) I feel I can discount out of hand, and that’s from the Divine Gift dogma. That supposedly divine source surely doesn’t even exist, so don’t tell me I have an eternal soul, either.

[DavisModerator]

@paul Ryan.

A crude summary but pretty spot on. Philosophers should actually say Geeze more.

[UnseenParticipant]

One of the main problems defenders of free will has is definitional. So, when they want to defend or prove free will, they get pretty creative and come up with a definition they know they can prove, even when it deviates with common usage. In other words, they cheat.

There is a common usage of the term “free will,” but it is very loose and results in contradictions. In other words, it’s nonsense.

[SteveInCOParticipant]

@davis:

Actually, he said “Geez” not “Geeze”. The philosopher is clearly one of those who “Geez”es. You know the type, “geezers.” 😛

[DavisModerator]

@steveinco

Actually…I uh…spelt it with an extra “e” on purpose…to…uh…make some sort of statement about stuff…which is…you know…so obvious…I don’t even need to explain it. You dig?

[SteveInCOParticipant]

@davis

Sure.

But do you honestly think I was going to pass on the “geezer” pun? 🙂

[Milton PlattParticipant]

Never got into the arguments about free will because it always gets rather philosophical and nebulous. I did read one post that stated that since we are all influenced by a variety of factors over our lifetime (parents,teachers, peers, tv news, weather, work mates, spouses, friends, and so forth), and all these feed into decision making in both obvious and subtle ways, free will is an illusion. Not here to defend or deny the position but it does seem to have merit

[SteveInCOParticipant]

We certainly have the illusion of free will. Whether it’s just the fact that everything we’ve ever seen is interacting in a complicated way, too complicated for us to predict, so our actions seem at least somewhat indeterminate, is another question.

A lot of the arguments against free will are (ultimately) based on the premise that the universe is a gigantic mechanism, that given a set of states, you can predict all future states (in principle). The problem with that is, the universe is not, in fact, deterministic! Quantum mechanics introduces a fundamentally random element. It’s not like a die roll, where you could conceivably accurately measure the orientation speed, and direction of motion of the die and figure out how it will land. It just seems random to us because we don’t have the processing power (or measuring capability) in our heads to do it. QM is, apparently, *truly* random, with the equations describing the probability of different outcomes.

If there is a non-deterministic free will, this sort of thing might be what underpins it. It would mean that our free will isn’t a conscious phenomenon like we think it is, but it would also mean that predestination is false.

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