^^^ I very much doubt it myself.
No. And it hasn’t been since the early to mid 20th century.
Not in the sense I was using that word, although it is in a different sense. What I meant was that an “objective” view involves the observation of an “object.” This observation is “subjective” in the sense of being one person’s observation only, but that isn’t what I was talking about.
A view from within is not the observation of an object, but the experience of the self as a subject. It is “subjective” in a sense that no observation from without can be.
The reality of randomness is another story, though. I’ll explain in a moment.
No, it is simply our inability to predict the event’s outcome, except statistically. In some cases, e.g. the decay of a radioactive particle, the cause is known, but the outcome remains indeterminate.
When we’re talking about human behavior, our knowledge of the causes becomes a bit murkier, but we do know quite a bit: about drives, conditioning, learned responses, information processing, rational decisions, irrational impulses. But it remains impossible to predict the outcome of an individual choice with perfect certainty, and most likely it would remain impossible to do that even given perfect knowledge of the conditions leading to the decision, both external and internal. I say that because the brain’s conscious behavior is a chaotic system, infinitely sensitive to determining conditions and so ultimately prey to quantum indeterminacy.
So – it’s not just the “appearance” of randomness, but genuine indeterminacy that’s at play: real randomness, not just apparent randomness. And that does support free will, because what appears to be (and in fact is) random from the outside can be genuinely chosen when experienced from within. Whereas what appears to be (and in fact is) determined from the outside cannot, and any subjectively perceived freedom of choice is illusory.
I really don’t see the problem.
Engaging in the discussion of freewill is a decision I made, I could have chosen to ignore this thread. Hence, engaging in this argument of free will versus determinism is an act of free will.
My quoting is entirely functional.
Yes. I think you are amazing. I’m too scattered to be able to reference the way you do.
Your argument:
- Freewill exists.
- I chose (or not) to participate in this post.
- Therefore freewill exists.
Presupposing your conclusion. Begging the question.
Well, thank you for your tribute, then.
It has been pointed out by some philosophers that there are significant problems in both free will and its negation (I believe my good friend Hobbes made a point to that effect). Since the will is not observable except inasumch as it is manifest in an action, it seems that both free and unfree will are nonfalsifiable propositions. But since free will is an elementary aspect of our view of the self, it seems also quite probable that trying to view it as linearly derived, for its proponents, is wrongminded. The proposition is either accepted or is not, but this does not seem for many people to be in any way connected to other falsifiable propositions (i.e. it is insulated). It is a framework through which the self is understood, and although its acceptance appears to be based upon a desire to accept, the desire for which would be subject to the same question of freedom, this is not necessarily the case, for we do not need to even view the will as an actual “thing”, for our understanding of reality is identical either way, so that any questions of freedom can simply be unasked. Is their not something a little suspicious in saying that we can get outside of ourselves and have our logical constructs be the final arbiters on those things the conditions for whose existence and unexsitence cannot be objectively stated?
Science does not disprove free will. To describe people either deterministically or stochastically does not constitute a refutation of free will, as science is a model of the occurance of sensations, and thus is on an inferior ground relative to those things which we would view as ourselves. The experience of free will is equally real to any sensation of reality, but the model only describes occurance of the sensations, and cannot be used to deny the experience of freedom.
Because our constructs are merely methods of predicting and interpretating our sensations, there are no criteria for the refutation of either proposition if for an individual either proposition is experienced directly. Because free will is non-falsifiable, it is entirely subjective. The only refutation I can see is to say that it is possible to demonstrate contradictions internal to the proponent of free will, but becuase such depths of ourselves are known through vague intuitions, it is not possible to make a deductive denial of the freedom of will, or not even necessarily possible to come to an agreement as to those criteria that would be needed to satisfy to disprove it.
I believe in free will because I want to. Problematic as this might seem, I have denied the pursuit of the question, not because I hide my head in the sand to avoid dealing with reality, but that a “reality” which can do nothing to me is no reality at all.
It presupposes that nothing is set in stone and therefore I will have to make decisions in the future. By claiming that I am determined to make choices in not determinism. Determinism is when I have no choice.
So you agree with me then?
Are you referencing that I am claiming determinism, because I’m not. I’m still just asking about it. But what I am claiming is that when a premise presupposes the conclusion, this is a fallacy and is called “Begging the question” or circular reasoning. i.e.
- nothing is set in stone
- I have a choice!
- Therefore nothing is set in stone
I think we should keep in mind that freewill/determinism is an age old issue that is still absolutely wide open for debate and I don’t think we are going to solve it in this post. (Maybe in the next one though! 
)
XXL:
Any changes that you could make to yourself just make you more you. So you did not change you but made you more you. Try and change something like from a caring person to a non-caring person, or from a non-racist to a racist. Changing the real you can not be done by you. You would have to be affected by something on the outside of you by what you see or by others actions. It would have to make you realize something strong enough to change you, which comes from the outside but affects you inside.
Fent:
You could not have chosen differently because this is what you wanted to do the “most” and you always do what you want to do the “most”. Doing what you want to do the “most” is what makes you feel the best. You will always do what makes you feel the best, at the time of decision.
Any changes that you could make to yourself just make you more you. So you did not change you but made you more you. Try and change something like from a caring person to a non-caring person, or from a non-racist to a racist. Changing the real you can not be done by you. You would have to be affected by something on the outside of you by what you see or by others actions. It would have to make you realize something strong enough to change you, which comes from the outside but affects you inside.
Interesting thought.
So there’s this monk talking to this Samurai right?
The monk says “Everything is predetermined by Karma.”
The Samurai says “So there’s no such thing as free will!”
The monk laughs and says “You idiot! You have perfect freedom!”
Ahhh. The good old hilarious free will debate. Didn’t you lot get beyond this one at say, fourteen?
Or is it just that you are thirteen?
The problem with “free-will” is that it presupposes a sort of mental plurality that just doesn’t square with what we currently understand about the brain. Those who advocate free-will speak of consciousness as though it is an entity somehow separate from other neural processes, capable of “guiding” them through an act of “will”. However, to speak of consciousness as though it is a separate, unique neural process is as futile as it is inaccurate: consciousness, as we experience it, is just a neural process. The self isn’t an entity that sits atop the brain, exogenously dictating certain processes within it, it is itself that very neural process that we observe. We do not control processes within the brain: we are - inexorably - those very processes to begin with.
That is not to say that strict, biological determinism is the only viable recourse available to us here. The strict determinists argue that choice is illusory, but I’ve yet to hear what the practical difference between illusory and real choice is. We may not have absolute freedom of choice, but that is not to say that we have no capacity for choice at all. If we measure the freedom of will by the capacity for (or the scope of) choice, then it is clear that we are more “free” than other animals, who are in turn more “free” than plants. The range of choices (illusory or otherwise) available to us are wide: neural processes spark other neural processes which necessarily shape who we are. We have no exogenous, metaphysical, “conscious” control over these processes (because we are these processes) but the capacity of these processes to cause a wide range of effects remains undiminished. This certainly doesn’t constitute free-will in the conventional sense, but it’s about the closest we can reasonably hope for in my opinion.
It is, of course, easy to dismiss this definition of freedom by suggesting that any “choices” made by the brain aren’t really “choices” at all because, in practice, the brain could not have made any other “choice”. Given the intractable, one-dimensional nature of time, this is - strictly speaking - true: actions made cannot be unmade. The odds of all past events occurring are 100%. Still, I’m not sure that one can therefore infer from this that present “choices” made in the brain are fatalistically determined long before they are “made”. At any given moment, the scope of possible actions within humans is almost incomprehensibly large: I’m not sure that even the most ardent determinist could argue with this. In hindsight, of course, no other choice could have been made than the one that was committed to, but that is not to say that present - or future - actions, are similarly bound to some inexorable, deterministic chain of causalities. The inevitability of the past doesn’t necessarily imply the inevitability of the future.
Free will (in the metaphysical sense at least) may be dead, but I still find within us the very real capacity for freedom. That must count for something.
I disagree with that quite strongly. Ideally I would like to believe that we all had free-will, but I just can’t square that with what I know about the human mind. For me - and many others - the realisation that free-will doesn’t really exist is a depressing thought, one that we find very troubling. My belief in free-will was abandoned against my emotional attachment to the concept and I would like very much to have reached a different conclusion on the matter. Nonetheless, I cannot escape what I have found to be true: free-will is an illusion.
JP:
My take on illusory choice:
Illusory choice is that it is seems like you are choosing without that choice being controlled by the factors that affect your emotions that actually make the choice. Not being aware of the decision process makes it feel like your just free willing it. There is no real choice.
Not having free will does not mean determinism. Every choice is made in the here and now and could be affected up to the point action is taken. There are far too many factors for determinism exist.
The feeling of freedom is itself a factor that determines our actions.
And how is that so? How do you choose differently with that feeling?
That feeling arises when you think you do at all have the ability to choose. So let’s say that you have the “choice” to wear white or black socks to work today. The idea that you are in a fateful situation, where it all comes down to the choice you make (I’m exaggerating, of course), brings you in a kind of trance, in which your rational mind is overwhelmed by instinctive forces, and you GRAB your white socks and you PUT them on, whereupon the rush of victory washes over you.