Do we have free will?

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22 May 2008, 6:23 pm

Free will is a construct of the human mind and has no basis in reality. Seriously, can anyone even provide an actual definition of free will?

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22 May 2008, 6:26 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

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But they are merely confusing cause with effect. The actions in the present and past are the causes, and their outcomes in the future are the effects -- no matter from what confusing angle they are viewed. I explained this in great detail about a year ago on the PPR area, but we're free to go through it again.

This isn't a confusion at all, and frankly, I am not likely going to look through all of these old posts to find your specific post. I either read it and dismissed it, or it is in a thread where I would not know where to look, or I argued with you already on this.

You have the free will to choose wether or not you want to do that

However, here is the question about the probability of you or me about spending some time searching for an old topic, how much probability does that have? and if does that really have to do with free will or is it something else?

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22 May 2008, 6:28 pm

Orwell wrote:

Free will is a construct of the human mind and has no basis in reality. Seriously, can anyone even provide an actual definition of free will?

Yes, I agree there, it has been used on different cases from different fields, and we need to define it before contemplating its validity and wether it does exist or not.

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22 May 2008, 6:46 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

greenblue wrote:

My position is that of the Chaos theory, which it seems to make room for free will, although that could be debated I think.

I am not sure that Chaos theory really does that, as it is actually deterministic and is just a form of math where describing situations where small changes can cause big effects.

I am not that sure either, as the Chaos theory and/or uncertainty in physics seem to ilustrate randomness rather than a fixed progression in time, which most people would defend the position of free-will, thinking of being the opposite, but it seems to point out more to something that we could define as random-will rather than actual free-will. Which could be an explanation of why free-will being an illusion, in that sense.

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22 May 2008, 7:06 pm

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I do not believe that is how chaos works; as AG has pointed out, chaos is completely deterministic, it is just very difficult to predict because small changes in initial conditions have a dramatic influence on the way the chaotic system evolves. The state of the chaotic system at any point in time is still determined by its initial conditions.

Quantum mechanics in principle allows for random behavior, but I see little room for this to grant any kind of 'free will'. Never mind that there is no reason to suppose that the human brain exploits any truly non-deterministic events in computation on anything like a meaningful scale, I believe...

Empirically, free will is utter nonsense.

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22 May 2008, 7:09 pm

greenblue wrote:

Orwell wrote:

Free will is a construct of the human mind and has no basis in reality. Seriously, can anyone even provide an actual definition of free will?

Yes, I agree there, it has been used on different cases from different fields, and we need to define it before contemplating its validity and wether it does exist or not.

The fact that it can not even be defined indicates that it probably does not exist. As Lord Kelvin said

Kelvin wrote:

I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind

If you can't even define something, why debate over whether it exists? And anyways, the concept of free will is absurd. From a theological framework, God is absolute and created the world as He so pleased. Outside a theological framework, everyone is the product of their genetics and their environment. Where is there room for free will in either? The notion is ridiculous.

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22 May 2008, 7:19 pm

Orwell wrote:

Well, the issue is that most people believe that we have free will, as shown by this blog post on free will beliefs across cultures:
http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/20 ... airly.html

As can be seen, people tend to believe we have free will and that we MUST have free will. Now, to be honest, there are definitions of free will in philosophy and the type most often referred to as "free will" is libertarian free will, which is part of the philosophy of "libertarianism" in metaphysics, which has its definitions here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertaria ... efinitions

Given that most people seem to innately believe in libertarian free will, and yet, we have yet to date to account for this intuition, what then accounts for this agency? There is an issue with finding empirical definition, but many people hold to metaphysical ideas that cannot be proven. To give an example, religion is often regarded as unfalsifiable and for the most part, unverifiable, but people believe it and debate it.

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22 May 2008, 7:44 pm

twoshots wrote:

Yes, I see my error here, some time ago that I last read about the Chaos theory in which randomness is only apparent, and I thought it had both, my bad :oops:

Quote:

Quantum mechanics in principle allows for random behavior, but I see little room for this to grant any kind of 'free will'. Never mind that there is no reason to suppose that the human brain exploits any truly non-deterministic events in computation on anything like a meaningful scale, I believe...

Empirically, free will is utter nonsense.

well, I wasn't using quantum mechanics or the uncertainty principle to support the existence of free will, rather than to explain phenomena that could be used to support it and to explain a possible non-fixed timeline, and the validity of something claimed being destined to be. And the explanation of the apparent free-will existence because of the same uncertainty and randomness.

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22 May 2008, 8:30 pm

Orwell wrote:

What about when we conciously change the environment that affects our choices? Like a drug addict purposely flushing his poison down the drain so he doesn't give into cravings - hasn't he demonstrated free will? His genetics and the environment might conspire to make he shoot up, but he conciously removes that choice and so thwarts both factors. What else would you call that if not free will?

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22 May 2008, 8:41 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Well, the issue is that most people believe that we have free will

I think we both agree that most people are stupid.

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22 May 2008, 8:42 pm

Speckles wrote:

What causes them to change their environment? People's actions are either guided by a supernatural force or are the product of their genetics and environment. What is the basis of free will? What determines it? From whence does it originate, and what does it truly consist in?

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22 May 2008, 8:45 pm

Orwell wrote:

I think we both agree that most people are stupid.

True.

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22 May 2008, 8:49 pm

Speckles wrote:

Orwell wrote:

Yes, that would be considered free will, which have been defined and accepted in society, and I think society needs the concept defined as well other concepts, in order to function, but empirically speaking, it could be just an appearance. What if it doesn't really exist and is just an illusion based on our human perception?

I think it is reasonable to question free will and subjecting it to doubt, but I don't agree with the thought of it being ridiculous or nonsense, just like that, as it doesn't seem to me to provide much deep thought about the subject.

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22 May 2008, 8:52 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Orwell wrote:

I think we both agree that most people are stupid.

True.

well, it's being stupid a matter of free will?

and we could ask what does stupid mean.

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22 May 2008, 8:53 pm

greenblue wrote:

well, it's being stupid a matter of free will?

and what does stupid mean?

I cited that most people believed in free will, he countered that other people are too incompetent to properly render judgment on something like this.

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22 May 2008, 9:05 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

greenblue wrote:

well, it's being stupid a matter of free will?

and what does stupid mean?

I cited that most people believed in free will, he countered that other people are too incompetent to properly render judgment on something like this.

well, I hope that was what he really meant, but then, I would think that to be a little unfair to call people to be incompetent like that, for not giving thought on something that seems to be too abstract for them. In that case, I would call that to people who deny free will without giving it proper judgement on it, as well.

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