Free Will

I have to admit that I don’t know much about how the brain works, other than things I have read and heard here and there.

With that said, if you apply the laws of physics, how could free will be possible? If everything is cause and effect, then there can only be one possible future. And that would have to include human actions, thoughts, etc.

With the right equations, machines, time, etc., wouldn’t you be able to determine every human action and action within the universe?

I don’t know… it just seems to me that logic would suggest that free will and choice is an allusion and that the chain of cause and effects are the reason I am posting this message, not because I am curious to learn something about this topic.

Is my thinking correct here or is there something about the brain or physics that I am ignorantly overlooking?

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewto … highlight=

If we don’t have free will, how could we question it?

The illusion of freewill would make that possible.
In the end, this question doesn’t really matter, because, any way you look, people still have to make choices, and they are responsible for them. Those choices are based on experience. That person is responsible for their experiences and how they change that person’s opinion. And by responsible, I mean that person is subject to criticism or praise according to their actions.

One popular argument for free will is that once someone becomes aware of how they react to stimuli, another course of action could then be taken, thus that body would behave in an apparent non-determined way. The problem here lies in the logic behind how that somebody came to become aware. In other words the question is with what part of itself, it’s necessarily indeterminate self, did somebody become aware. If we assume that the laws of physics are in effect for everything including us, then it follows that they also yielded the talents of the mind which then gave a perspective of awareness. The argument of one possessing free will once they become conscious of their consciousness presupposes an uncaused talent in the mind which can then, virus-like, infect the other talents into acting as it, the uncaused cause acts, apparently indeterminably. It is simply the classic mind-body dichotomy stated otherwise.

The only viable conclusion once the laws of physics are accepted to affect us as well as other matter is that we question because there is sufficient reason for us to question.

Besides, it isn’t really free will that we sense but a feeling of I and not-I. To everyone else, and as a result, to ourselves as well, we always remain the same person, even though this is factually not true. Every cell in our body is replaced every seven years. I was Erlir when I was a zygote, and I am still Erlir now, though clearly I am a whole other amount of matter. The reason why we sense I as being instead of becoming, and separate instead of united with nature, is because our knowledge is limited by what we can do now with our present mental faculties - in other words, because we cannot sense the forces that keep making us.

Free will is a concept dealing with absolute culpability. We don’t hold a chess program culpable for moving a piece. Eeven though it seems as if it is acting of it’s own volition, we know it is only a vessel. Such an idea as culpability is preposterous and illogical and I welcome anyone to make sense of it for me - especially religious folks who hold judgment awaits them in the afterlife.

Vision, although people think they are making decisions and it feels like they are making decisions, that doesn’t mean that they had control over it. From the first action in the universe, everything after that would have to be able to be predicted according to physics, at least from my understanding.

I agree with Camus that the most immediate philosophical question is whether this world is worth living in(suicide.) I think the only way to answer that is determining whether there is part of us that actually belongs to us as beings.

This is the paradoxical thing: let’s say that one day free will is completely proven wrong and people decide to start committing suicide. According to determinism, these people didn’t even chose/decide to commit suicide; it was just what the chain of events in the universe constituted, and it could have been predicted with proper time and recourses.

If there is anything that makes you feel the lightness of being, it is definitely determinism: realizing that you are just merely observing what your body is doing and have the illusion that you are making choices.

And that’s what makes me laugh when people preach about making choices and stuff along those lines. It’s one big lie, but that is the only way it could be. That is the way that the chain of events in the universe have panned out.

Am I typing this because I chose to or am I typing this because it is the only thing that could have happened under the laws of physics?

I’ll admit we don’t have free will in all cases (choosing who you’re born to, walking through walls, etc), but I am certain there in times of choice, we certainly have free will. Let me just ask a few questions:

[i]What’s the point of feeling like I have choice if it is only an illusion? And what’s to say that determinism isn’t an illusion?

If determinism is true, then are people really accountable of their doings?

Should people be punished, even though their actions are not in their control?

How can people break out of habitual cycles if it is in their behavior (to cycle)?

If we are controlled by the chemistry of our brains, then why do we engage in self-destructive behavior? Wouldn’t our bodies wish to preserve themselves?

What would be the point of arguing for/against free will if it doesn’t exist? If we are deterministic beings, would we really have any concept of what free will is?[/i]

Sorry, but as assertive and emotional as I am about it, free will is true. I have come a long way with the help of choice, and I have seen others do so many times. Choice is not an illusion, because the effects are very real.

If everything is cause and effect, then there can only be one possible future. And that would have to include human actions, thoughts, etc.

Perhaps it’s like a game of tennis. You have determined events like the court size, the type of ball, the net, the framework of laws that govern the game etc…

And you have free-will. The decision to hit the ball on one side, the deciding not to return a serve, the choosing to let the ball go out even though you can hit it back in etc…

The thing is in tennis no one would say “that guy hit the ball out but because this is a tennis match and the physical makeup of the ball in conjucnion with the laws of the game and of physics caused a bouce outside the line, we do not hold the person who hit the ball responsible.” He had no choice.

No, instead we tell that guy don’t hit so hard next time. I believe this takes care of most of the arguments. But one tricky issue is brain chemistry.

I suppose in my analogy the correct way to describe that would be to say one tennis player has stronger natural ligaments and therefore an advantage. I would reframe the chemistry question like that because when you get to that level of sophistication expecting it to work correctly all the time is asking for trouble.

I know enough to know it’s damn scary to think(pun) about your thoughts a s just chemical bursts but that appears to be what they are…

No matter what science tells you about the way that everything within it’s scope MUST be, you can still freely choose to color what’s outside that scope however you like.

If cause and effect was unquestionably at the root of ‘the world’, yes, then that would be the case.

The trouble, to name one thing with making that work is that the measuring, the equating and the operating aslo need to be taken in account in the siad processes.

opposite argument; ‘only free will is real, because from that follows that cause and effect are illusory’

Do you feel that all your thoughts and actions are inevitable?

The power of will, in Buddhist logic, is considered to be a force of ignorance (meaning lack of insight concerning the interdependent, conditioned and constantly changing workings of the world) brought about through erroneous thinking. This ignorance is overcome through the proper use of both intellectual analysis and meditation. Doing this, the insubstantiality of cravings and attachment becomes apparent and the power of will inevitably fades. So in that sense, it could be considered an illusory belief, and one that obstructs true freedom, which is the freedom from illusion.

I don’t know about ‘true’, but when it comes to religious doctrines (or societally- or culturally-determined moral codes, for that matter), each contains the prescribed morality, so that would logically preclude complete determinism. The follower of a moral code (and that acceptance is a critical requirement, of course) has to be able to exercise a degree of choice whether or not to abide by that code, otherwise there’d be no way to hold him or her accountable. But it’s like each one is a closed system, because there must be the code, the acceptance of it, the choice and the perceived consequences.

Each doctrine has its own idea of that. From a Buddhist perspective the point is that ‘right action’ is intended to reduce our suffering in life. So it’s a positive incentive rather than the threat of punishment. I suppose the Buddha’s message was that life itself can be punishing enough, so focus on ways to reduce that aspect of it. The ethical basis is that we carry forth the fruits of our deeds into each successive moment.

Most doctrines or codes have prescribed means for helping the practitioner to act according to what the doctrine promotes. And the recognized (ordained, if religious) leaders and organized groups of adherents are considered as support for that. In that sense, the Twelve-step program could be considered a moral code equal to the Catholic Church’s or Buddhism’s.

That ‘chemistry’ is hard-wired for fulfilment of our desires and cravings. In some respects, it’s a machine built for wanting and wanting and wanting some more. Also, the difficulties and hardships that come with existence may cause our impulses to get out of balance. We seek the feeling of comfort the comes from fulfilling a need, but can’t stop the seeking behavior when that same comfort-giving thing doesn’t work anymore.

We are beings with brains that allow us to both make choices and to analyze the nature of those choices. That’s why we discuss free will as a concept; it has no other meaning beyond what we think it means.

The fact that effects of your choices are ‘real’ to you doesn’t mean that you made them freely. It doesn’t even mean that those effects were only and always the direct result of your choices. As well, the fact that you believe you’ve ‘come a long way’ by making certain choices doesn’t mean that you made them freely. If they were choices that benefitted you then, as a rational person, you likely assessed the world around you when considering what to do and saw the ways in which the environment within which you made the choice necessarily restricted what it would be. Unless you didn’t care what the most likely outcome would be, that is. In which case there’d have been no need to choose in the first place.

But I’m not a Buddhist. If choice is an illusion, then what else is? And if it was, then how would we know?

  1. Are you saying people do have choice?

  2. What I mean is if that an action, let’s say a robbery, is committed, and it is predetermined by a series of events, should the person be held accountable for the series of events that caused the individual to do so?

Again, not Buddhist. And what do you mean to say here? The only answer I have to reduce suffering is to change, hence freely act, what is causing suffering.

And you could accept the Twelve-step program or not, by will.

There have been people who resisted what they want. How does determinism account for this if the brain is a “wanting machine”?

Again, are we making choices or not?

What does benefit have to do with choice? Of course I did what benefited me; I wanted to and I willed it by action. I could have done otherwise and ruined myself. Just because there is a good and bad answer doesn’t mean I am restricted to the better one; same for everybody else.

Ever heard of quantum consciousness theories? These are theories that take the non-determinism of quantum mechanics and apply it to the brain to get - tadda! - free will!

You mean like having a soul?

To tie in to something I was thinking about, Time. Free will and Time are directly related it seems to me albeit in a way I do not understand. (Please allow me to preface this with, this is just what I am thinking, not any sort of fact blah blah eg etc… whathaveyou) Time is something that we made up, to help us make sense of our linear seeming existence. It’s always right now, when has it ever been five minutes ago or five minutes from now? To us it’s always right now. That being taken as fact for the moment, then Time wouldn’t pass, we would pass in the unending present moment. If this is true, then at this moment, George Washington is crossing the Delaware, we are landing on the moon and I am making a BLT when I am in 5th grade and I am typing this all in the present moment. So how would free will play into that? It would seem that somehow we have already made all of our choices or are making them all at the same time and passing through, thinking we are making these choices, but really just passing through them to see how it plays out, like a movie with really kickass virtual reality graphics?

The Human soul is an energy independent of matter, yet has side effects in matter. So the brain is made to react to spiritual energy. SO if you are depressed(lost hope) you will have less stimulation in the endorphin(saritonine) part of the brain.

How can you begin to say, with any degree of certainty what the soul is and how it affects or manifests itself in life?

it is, therfore it is.
How can you begin to say that the lack of hope will stimulate depression???

I feel love from outside my body,… where the person who loves me touches me. It is not up to the perception of the user to feel love. For if I hate the person who loves me, I still feel their love, and hate their love.

So where is this precious love gland you need to have it be a biochemical reaction.

look, non-freewill , ones actions based on insticint alone

free-will , actions , based on , the ability to think and therefore question

Your response is your own choice I suppose, but saying it is because I say it is, is not a valid point. Also, I never said anything about depression. I was hoping to have a good conversation with a person of faith, but I see it’s not meant to be. Good luck to you Phil.