Free Will

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I've been thinking about this for a while, and I'd like to here your two cents? Does free will exist? Is a person truely able to govern the course of their lives at any point, or are set a rough "path" at birth?

I'd say free will doesn't exist. Here's why. Since I was young I always followed a different path than everyone else. I didn't play football, because I reasoned completion is stupid and sport brings out the worst in people. I had an interest in science, I figured it could get me a good job. All my life I've been making rational decisions based on my opinions, and sixteen years later I'm an almost textbook AS patient. Every minute of those eighteen years I thought I was making the choices, that the things I did were determined at that moment and that my thoughts were unique, and yet every step of the way I was making "AS" decisions, that could easily be predicted. I've come to the conclusion that free will doesn't really exist, and that our decisions are always predictable. People might argue that they could go out and kill someone right now, proving free will exists, but does it? Maybe that response to that question was long predetermined, and they were always going to say that, there was no chance of them saying something else instead. Your thoughts?

As time goes by I'm becoming more and more fatalistic. From a scientific point of view I think the weight of genes in determining life courses is almost 100 %. Are genes just a manifestation of a greater plan ? Possible. A (ex ?) friend of mine who is into philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences told me about some interesting studies that showed how, from a neurological point of view, free will is just an illusion. My personal opinion is pretty radical: everything is decided from the beginning, we have to act "as if" we have free will, the "sense of agency" is fundamental, but, strictly speaking, I think we are almost completely determined.

Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

There are those who think that life
Has nothing left to chance
With a host of holy horrors
To direct our aimless dance

A planet of playthings
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
The stars arent aligned ---
Or the gods are malign
Blame is better to give than receive

You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice

You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path thats clear
I will choose free will

There are those who think that theyve been dealt a losing hand
The cards were stacked against them ---
They werent born in lotus-land

All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate
Kicked in the face
You cant pray for a place
In heavens unearthly estate

Each of us
A cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt
Thats far too fleet...

just wait till Orwell finds out about this thread... :p

God gave us all free will.

No, there is no free will. Every single one of our decisions is influenced by outside factors - whether it be our friends, family, other people, culture, or circumstances. We may choose a certain career because it earns more money or we have been praised in the past about our knowledge of it, or because it runs in the family. We are also influenced by our genetics - in fact, about 95% of our life choices are defined by our genes. Social conditioning plays a significant part, though - especially if we have been conditioned to have preference of some things in our childhood.
If there really was free will, many people would choose to settle down and not contribute to the community in any way. They would be occupied with their own lives and enjoy it to the fullest. However, we are pressured by the public system and our peers to go to school and learn and get a job because it is the only way we can survive and prove to others and ourselves that we are worth something in the society. The motive behind most of our choices is the need to feel accepted by other people, or to fulfill our own needs to a certain extent. Therefore, because the decisions we make are based upon factors that are not under our control, there is no such thing as free will.

I think there certain "crossroads" that we come to, or events that occur during the course of our lives, that are predetermined. We can use free will to decide which path we want to take from each of those points.

One example would be:
You are predetermined to meet a certain individual at a certain point. You can take path A and choose to have a relationship with them, or you can take path B and go on by yourself.

Free will does not exist. There is no plausible mechanism for it, nor is there an analytically rigorous definition of it with which to work. Its proponents merely postulate its existence without defining it and certainly don't do anything to prove it.

I found it...

Resolve Newcomb's Paradox. Also, explain why there is a need to reject forms of Christianity that deny free will, most notably Calvinism.

Freewill is an illusion. The universe is like a set of interlocking gears....some huge and some microscopic....but they all rotate into each other. Everything impacts and determines everything else. We aren't many; we are one.

Nevertheless, your choices are important and you need to do the best you can to make wise and compassionate ones. Of course, the choices you will ultimately make are already factored into the equation.

Should people be held accountable for their deeds if there is no freewill?

You just don't have the free will to avoid it, don't you?


Anyway, determinism does makes sense, which I believe it is very plausible, though fatalism seems to be plausible as well, as it has been illustrated in few time travel movies, such as 12 monkeys, if i'm correct on this, something like, playing a film and the end being the way it was written and filmed no matter what the audience feel or believe.

if we have free will then we are all responsible for our own choices.

if there is no free will then nobody is responsible for anything.

fee will is a complete joke. free will my ass! mostley what seems to be going on here is predestiny mixed with a little luck, and chance!

well, given that our choices and actions are determined by some factors and circumstances, hence replacing the idea of free-will with causality, people are and still held responsable for their actions, I mean, crimes are determined by psychological factors as well as personality, learned behaviour, learned experience and genetic/biological traits.

Psychology, psychiatry and neurology seem to confirm this, take sociopaths, psychopaths, schizophrenia, as examples of this, and they are held responsable and punished for their actions, well, except for perhaps schizophrenia?, and even things such as personal disputes or anger problems, you could argue they had the free-will not to do it, but I would say it wouldn't be exactly the case, from my observation, I would say that most likely, people act the way they act because of the way they are and how they have been brought up, and determined by few circumstances, psychology being one.

For the sake of convenience, necessity and control, likely, the concept of free-will have been stated in society, but that's just an idea regarding the issue of free-will and determinism.

Last edited by greenblue on 30 Apr 2009, 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

you either have free will or you do not.

you are either able to choose or your choices are already made for you.

This could be disputed to an extent, but in any case what does it have to do with whether or not free will exists?