Free Will

Free Will [+ favourites]

An interesting subject, which many have discussed, discussions which have led to nothing but more arguments. Here's a thought

Every living sentinent being must have some form of free will. If there was not, we would still have to treat each other as if there were in order to live together in society. Otherwise, everytime someone did something terrible, you couldn't punish them, because they can't help it. His genes or his environment or even his God made him do it. And every time someone did something good, you couldnt honor them, because they were a puppet too. If you think that everyone around you is a puppet, why bother communicating with them? Why try to plan or create anything, because everything you plan or create or dream or desire is just acting out the script that your puppeteer built into you.
So we conceive of ourselves and everyone around us as volitional beings. We treat everyone as if they did things with a purpose in mind, instead of because they're being pushed from behind. We punish criminals, we reward altruists.

On the opposite end of the spectrum,

There is something we have as humans, something we are, that wasn't caused by anything else. Not our soul, if that's what you were thinking. The preists and ministers say that God created our souls, and that puts us under the control of a puppeteer. If God created our souls, then He's responsible for every choice we make. God, our genes, our environment, or some stupid programmer keying in code at an ancient terminal- there's no way free will can exist if we as individuals are the result of some external cause. Thus, the common philisophical answer, free will doesnt exist. Only the isslusion of free will, because the causes of our behavior are so complex that we cant trace them back. If you have one line of dominos, knocking each other down one by one, you can say. "This domino fell because that one pushed it." But if you were to have an infinite number of dominos, traceable back in an infinite number of directions you would say, "This domino fell because it wanted too."


So what do you think?

"What's the point in not conforming, if it changes you?"

You are correct in everything you said... there is no real truth to the concept of free will.

However... (and there's always a however)

Truth is only truth when all the facts have been realized.

There is also the truth that although we are all, in essence, the result of out environment and genetics and the moon and various other factors... we are still all absolutely unique.

Free will's definition may be whatever it is... however my brain patterns will inevitably be different than any other creature or entity known in existence because I exist in a different space and time than the closest most similar creature in the universe does to me.

Because I have behind me factors that make me different than everyone else, I do, in a way, have a unique "will" of my own. So if my decision given a similar stimulus differs from another, we can allocate that to our "free will", but it's actually our "unique will".

And I personally don't see any problem with that. The laws of the universe prevent me from being predicted by anything except the likeness of God... which makes my future decisions, in essence, a mystery.

Which to me factors in all the necessary concepts of free will...

... without the freedom.

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

Eeeenteresting.

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If God created our souls, then He's responsible for every choice we make. God, our genes, our environment, or some stupid programmer keying in code at an ancient terminal- there's no way free will can exist if we as individuals are the result of some external cause. Thus, the common philisophical answer, free will doesnt exist. Only the illusion of free will, because the causes of our behavior are so complex that we cant trace them back. If you have one line of dominos, knocking each other down one by one, you can say. "This domino fell because that one pushed it." But if you were to have an infinite number of dominos, traceable back in an infinite number of directions you would say, "This domino fell because it wanted too."

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Simply because something is tracable in an infinite number of directions, does not infact mean that it is infinite. It is just percieved as infinite because no end has been found and/or it is belived no end will ever be found.

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Also, infinity cannot be measured or comprehended (thus predicted or programmed) by even God, because it is by definition incomprehensible.

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"What's the point in not conforming, if it changes you?"

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There is also the truth that although we are all, in essence, the result of out environment and genetics and the moon and various other factors...

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"My mind is tearing me apart, then it constructively puts me back together again."

You're not describing where your ability to think came from though... were you born with it? Were you a go-getter at the age of one?

Doubtful...

So it must have either been learnt environmentally or developed genetically. My decisions in life do not mimick my parents either and I can safely say that its possible I turned out different is because of the fact that I saw the fallacies in their behaviour. You are probably similar.

Unless you can describe the free will you are talking about (and why it exists... ie.. how do you decide?) it really must be left to factors that eliminate the possiblity of free will.

But I'm not saying you should be compassionate to druggies... They are in the unique "soul" that they are, and their "unique will" has led them to the place they are in life. If this "unique will" is a part of them and no other, then they are definitely accountable for it.

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I diagree on that point. I feel we are a product of our decsions and we came to such decsions based on out enviroment and surrondings.

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"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

I think the word "free" is sort of important here. Having an unique will is one thing, but "free will" is an abstract way of saying volition. If our choices are essentially circumscribed by circumstance and subordinate to (or even within) a causal system predicated by organisms and their environment, then no, there is no such thing as free will. That's why Dawkin's "selfish gene" is so darned depressing. We are distinct composites of a determinate system. In this way, the possibility of a "free will" is eliminated just as it is when we conceive of the universe as created by God. Everything is - in a sense - predetermined. In Decius' analysis, our "wills" can only render us more significant variables in the causal matrix - without ever making us "free". That, I think, is what he meant to say.

But correct me if I'm wrong, Dessy.

I define free will as the ability of a sentinent being to think for itself. Even if everything is predetermined, as Witt has pointed out, we would still be able to think for ourselves, whether or not that would change the outcome of the event. Here's something I've had in my head for awhile.

We never create our own stories. We only mimick or modify existing ones. We get the seed of them from things we read, things we hear people say, and combine those with things we've thought of until it becomes sesible to us. We have no clear view of the world, we have trouble finding our way through our own minds. Everything not orderly or sensible, or at ease. What's in our minds? Madness. Thousands of competing contradictory impossible visions that make no sense at all because they cant fit together. But they do fit together because as we make them, this way today, that way tomorrow, as they're needed. As if we can make a new idea-machine inside our heads for every new problem we face. As if we conceive of a new universe to live in, every hour a new one, often hopelessly wrong, which is when we end up making mistakes and bad judgements. But sometimes, so perfectly right that it opens things up like a miracle and the world is seen in a new light and it changes everything. Madness, then illumination. And then deeds. We make up deeds. We change what our nonsense to illumination stories mean. We transform things so that the same memory can mean a thousand different things. Even in our dreams, sometimes we make up, out of randomness, something that illuminates everything..

"What's the point in not conforming, if it changes you?"

The concept of freewill vs determinism; compatibilism vs incompatibilism requires much more than a singular definition. It would be misleading to specify a singular definition of 'free will' since in reality there is no single concept of it. Consider this:

1. Some person (agent), at some time, could have acted otherwise than she did.
2. Actions are events.
3. Every event has a cause.
4. If an event is caused, then it is causally determined.
5. If an event is an act that is causally determined, then the agent of the act could not have acted otherwise than in the way that she did.

See any inconsistencies in this proposition? Yet it is actually found in our contemporary perception of the world.

"The summit is just a halfway point"

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It would be misleading to specify a singular definition of 'free will' since in reality there is no single concept of it.

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"What's the point in not conforming, if it changes you?"

I agree with summit.

"In search f greatness"

I don't suppose I or any other wioll be able to say if we have free will. At any event, the categorisation of I in relation to another is finite and therefore, as such, limited to knowing the influences of external influence upon what is thought to be internal action.

Ultimately, there is probably no free will in the individualistic sense of matter and mind, I believe, but there is will in the sense that there are processes occuring; its up to you whether this is viewed as free or closed; its the glass is half empty or half full problem.

However, I do believe it is necessery that we believe in free will for two reasons:

1. Anyone could use the excuse that it was not them doing something, which is troublesome for law and order

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2. If one belives there is no free will where is hope? What is anyone without hope for the future?

Also, I believe that if you think positively; positive results are what you get in return. This of itself gives me some reason, actually, to believe in free will...even if logic says otherwise....

""No words""

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<< You should describe that more because that statement sort of supports what I’m saying...

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There is also the truth that although we are all, in essence, the result of out environment and genetics and the moon and various other factors...
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"My mind is tearing me apart, then it constructively puts me back together again."

Yep, but as you already know, indirect causality is still causality.

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

Indirect causality? Bit of a contradiction isn't it?