Is free will possible, or are we always affect by some level of determinism
354 replies, posted
If you did not believe in this concept of "free will" doesn't that mean that you believe in fate? If that is the case then everyone could just sit around all day doing nothing? If that is not the case (which I'm sure it's not) then don't you already extinguish this idea of not having free will, also making the idea of "fate" crumble?
Ultimately, if you do not think you're in control then you do believe in fate/destiny, right? Meaning that all this boils down to is the concept of "fate". Shouldn't we get that out of the way first and then move onto free will?
It's just an idea...
[QUOTE=TheAverageMan;43770326]If you did not believe in this concept of "free will" doesn't that mean that you believe in fate? If that is the case then everyone could just sit around all day doing nothing? If that is not the case (which I'm sure it's not) then don't you already extinguish this idea of not having free will, also making the idea of "fate" crumble?
Ultimately, if you do not think you're in control then you do believe in fate/destiny, right? Meaning that all this boils down to is the concept of "fate". Shouldn't we get that out of the way first and then move onto free will?
It's just an idea...[/QUOTE]
Even if the future is set in stone, we aren't aware of it until it happens. Essentially I am fundamentally motivated to act in a way that increases expected utility, so that is what I do. I don't sit around doing nothing despite my existence being objectively meaningless and possibly predetermined because I am a biological automaton that attempts to act in ways that are expected to make it happy as part of a fundamental mechanism.
It's like saying that just because we understand what love is, and can explain it physiologically, doesn't mean we can't feel it any more.
[QUOTE=TheAverageMan;43770326]If you did not believe in this concept of "free will" doesn't that mean that you believe in fate? If that is the case then everyone could just sit around all day doing nothing? If that is not the case (which I'm sure it's not) then don't you already extinguish this idea of not having free will, also making the idea of "fate" crumble?
Ultimately, if you do not think you're in control then you do believe in fate/destiny, right? Meaning that all this boils down to is the concept of "fate". Shouldn't we get that out of the way first and then move onto free will?
It's just an idea...[/QUOTE]
the problem is it's a false dichotomy between fate and freedom
there's another answer
what you experience as conciousness isn't significant enough to be either.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43770580]the problem is it's a false dichotomy between fate and freedom
there's another answer
what you experience as conciousness isn't significant enough to be either.[/QUOTE]
Mhm, after thinking about it for awhile I think I must agree. Fate doesn't really pose a constraint to freedom. Well, there goes my argument! :P
[QUOTE=Ziks;43770573]Even if the future is set in stone, we aren't aware of it until it happens. Essentially I am fundamentally motivated to act in a way that increases expected utility, so that is what I do. I don't sit around doing nothing despite my existence being objectively meaningless and possibly predetermined because I am a biological automaton that attempts to act in ways that are expected to make it happy as part of a fundamental mechanism.
It's like saying that just because we understand what love is, and can explain it physiologically, doesn't mean we can't feel it any more.[/QUOTE]
I think I see what you're saying. I just don't understand your love analogy.
His analogy with love is that love is a chemical interaction in the brain caused by stimulus, we interpret the output of that as love. Knowing this doesn't diminish the importance of love.
[QUOTE=Ziks;43770573]Even if the future is set in stone, we aren't aware of it until it happens. Essentially I am fundamentally motivated to act in a way that increases expected utility, so that is what I do. I don't sit around doing nothing despite my existence being objectively meaningless and possibly predetermined because I am a biological automaton that attempts to act in ways that are expected to make it happy as part of a fundamental mechanism.
It's like saying that just because we understand what love is, and can explain it physiologically, doesn't mean we can't feel it any more.[/QUOTE]
You can't explain consciousness or emotions physiologically. If you can then congratulations, you've solved the mind-body problem and can go collect the fame and fortune that philosophers have sought after since the days of fucking Plato.
[QUOTE=ECrownofFire;43778235]You can't explain consciousness or emotions physiologically. If you can then congratulations, you've solved the mind-body problem and can go collect the fame and fortune that philosophers have sought after since the days of fucking Plato.[/QUOTE]
Emotions can be explained physiologically and have been, we know they are created by chemical reactions.
As for consciousness, the main problem with that is defining what exactly it is, but there is no reason to believe that it cannot be explained physiologically.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43778417]Emotions can be explained physiologically and have been, we know they are created by chemical reactions.
As for consciousness, the main problem with that is defining what exactly it is, but there is no reason to believe that it cannot be explained physiologically.[/QUOTE]
When you find the data file for what Bananas taste like, I will give you my hat.
[editline]3rd February 2014[/editline]
Then again I guess the taste of bananas is an illusion too. It doesn't exist, it's just a very strong illusion that you are tasting bananas. In fact you are not tasting anything, it is just molecules hitting your tongue. Banana flavor is an illusion, an albeit powerful one, but an illusion none the less.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43778589]When you find the data file for what Bananas taste like, I will give you my hat.
[editline]3rd February 2014[/editline]
Then again I guess the taste of bananas is an illusion too. It doesn't exist, it's just a very strong illusion that you are tasting bananas. In fact you are not tasting anything, it is just molecules hitting your tongue. Banana flavor is an illusion, an albeit powerful one, but an illusion none the less.[/QUOTE]
So you're saying that the taste of bananas is magic then? And is somehow beyond your tongue and your brain then?
I'm not saying its an illusion, its all real, its just that its your brain doing it, its not some magical thing.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43778728]So you're saying that the taste of bananas is magic then? And is somehow beyond your tongue and your brain then?
I'm not saying its an illusion, its all real, its just that its your brain doing it, its not some magical thing.[/QUOTE]
Hook, line, and sinker.
I'm going to take exactly what you said, and change the phrase "Taste of bananas" to "Free will" and remove the word tongue.
[QUOTE="EVILcarcarcargo"]So you're saying that [I]Free Will[/I] is magic then? And is somehow beyond your brain then?
I'm not saying its an illusion, its all real, its just that its your brain doing it, its not some magical thing.[/QUOTE]
[editline]3rd February 2014[/editline]
How is this not exactly what I've been arguing for the past 3 days?
how does free will being magic in anyway support your argument
you keep making holes in your own argument
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43779333]Hook, line, and sinker.
I'm going to take exactly what you said, and change the phrase "Taste of bananas" to "Free will" and remove the word tongue.
[editline]3rd February 2014[/editline]
How is this not exactly what I've been arguing for the past 3 days?[/QUOTE]
So you are arguing that its magic? Got any proof for that? I mean I can make shit up as well so that doesn't really help your argument, in fact it makes it flat out laughable.
Oh and was the "EVILcarcarcargo" a mistake or was it a hilariously intentional insult just because I don't agree with you?
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43779375]how does free will being magic in anyway support your argument
you keep making holes in your own argument[/QUOTE]
Wow, you fail to understand.
I've been arguing that it isn't magic, but it is still free will.
>.<
I should just post about how you guys don't understand and I'm so dissapointed in you and that now we've been set back 2 days.
[editline]3rd February 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43779388]So you are arguing that its magic? Got any proof for that?[/QUOTE]
No.... I am arguing exactly what Evilcarcarcargo was arguing....
[editline]3rd February 2014[/editline]
Concentrate on the second line, cause the first line was rhetorical questions in this case posed to you.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43779391]
No.... I am arguing exactly what Evilcarcarcargo was arguing....[/QUOTE]
You've lost me completely
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43779405]You've lost me completely[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE="EVILcarcarcargo"]So you're saying that [I]Free Will[/I] is magic then? And is somehow beyond your brain then?
I'm not saying its an illusion, [B]its all real, its just that its your brain doing it, its not some magical thing.[/B][/QUOTE]
[editline]3rd February 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43754043]So free will must be magical in order for it to exist? Is that basically what you are saying?[/QUOTE]
See
Yeah except we can see the taste buds that allow you to taste bananas, along with the nerve connections to your brain that make you taste it.
There is no mechanism for free will and thus is not comparable. Free will isn't an illusion, its fairly clear to see what gives the impression of free will (your brain processing the information and coming to a conclusion on a perceived choice), doesn't mean its what you're trying to imply it is.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;43779446]Yeah except we can see the taste buds that allow you to taste bananas, along with the nerve connections to your brain that make you taste it.
There is no mechanism for free will and thus is not comparable. Free will isn't an illusion, its fairly clear to see what gives the impression of free will (your brain processing the information and coming to a conclusion on a perceived choice)[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry, free will isn't an illusion?
Let me lay this out:
I TASTE the banana flavor, I don't just get the idea of bananas in my head without anything else. Even if that taste is actually just nerve impulses shooting from my tongue to my brain, I still feel the Qualia taste of the bananas. I'm not saying that the Qualia taste is some magical thing that exists, I'm saying that it is made up out of the brain functions of Banana tasting.
In the same way, I feel my decisions, and I have the choice, and even though that is actually brain processes producing indeterminate output, WHAT ELSE COULD I POSSIBLY BE TALKING ABOUT?
Here is a picture to show what I think Free will would be if it exists (Top).
And the bottom is what you seem to think it would require;
[IMG]http://i61.tinypic.com/ng29kw.jpg[/IMG]
My question to you is, why should we add further complexity to the concept? If a human can possibly produce multiple outputs, then what else is there to it?
[editline]3rd February 2014[/editline]
This returns directly back to my argument again.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43739279]P1- If there are random variables in existence, then all events can possibly not turn out the same.
P2- Human decisions are an event.
P3- Free will, as you define it, is the possibility for human decisions not to turn out the same.
P4- There are random variables in the universe
C1- Therefore there is free will.[/QUOTE]
And for a more formal version;
[quote]
A) There are random variables in the working of the universe
B) Events
C) Have a possibility of turning out differently
D) Human Decisions
E) Free will (exists)
1. If A then (BC)
2. D = B
3. If DC then E
4. A ∴ BC ∴ DC ∴ E
[/quote]
Where is the choice coming from?
You're not making nearly as much sense as you believe you are right now and I'm not sure why you feel the need to condescend so much.
You feeling something doesn't make it a reality. You experience in and of itself is not proof of free will. it does not show or demonstrate choice.
Here. Let me clarify real nice and simple.
Until you can prove that the world doesn't function deterministically inside our brains, that there are in fact indeterminates that are large enough in the system to allow for true variation, and that this variation can be selected through a purely choice based mechanism that is devoid of the limitations of the brain and physical interactions of the neurons that doesn't rely on the limited conditions available inside the brain at that specific time to make a decision.(Aka becoming mad when you're sad without an external influence to cause that.
I don't know what else you could mean honestly. I really don't.
producing multiple variables to be chosen from doesn't imply choice. Only the availabilty of it, not actually any motivations towards whether that choice will ever be more than a possible variable.
i am saying quite clearly that until you can prove that these variables are in fact choices, that there is no free will.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43779704]Where is the choice coming from?
You're not making nearly as much sense as you believe you are right now and I'm not sure why you feel the need to condescend so much.
You feeling something doesn't make it a reality. You experience in and of itself is not proof of free will. it does not show or demonstrate choice.
Here. Let me clarify real nice and simple.
Until you can prove that the world doesn't function deterministically inside our brains, that there are in fact indeterminates that are large enough in the system to allow for true variation, and that this variation can be selected through a purely choice based mechanism that is devoid of the limitations of the brain and physical interactions of the neurons that doesn't rely on the limited conditions available inside the brain at that specific time to make a decision.(Aka becoming mad when you're sad without an external influence to cause that.
I don't know what else you could mean honestly. I really don't.
producing multiple variables to be chosen from doesn't imply choice. Only the availabilty of it, not actually any motivations towards whether that choice will ever be more than a possible variable.
i am saying quite clearly that until you can prove that these variables are in fact choices, that there is no free will.[/QUOTE]
Free will is the postulate that humans can choose different outcomes, not that they can imagine a square circle or taste purple whenever they want to. It isn't the case that you need to have every available concept open to you, only that you can produce different results. My diagram was to show that you think the bottom way, I think the top way.
Moreover, despite my condescending tone you seem to still not understand or try to understand that I posed a conditional. I said
[quote]
P1- [B]If[/B] there are random workings in the universe [B]then[/B] events have a possibility of turning out differently.[/quote]
A conditional isn't a claim it is a condition. You haven't prove the whole world is deterministic, I haven't proved it isn't I am arguing that it would be, and even if we have no multiple possible outputs, then our definition of free will is wrong, and I have a separate argument for that with a claim of free will definition which you can either agree with or attack.
Ultimately free will is the output of a fully functional brain. Utter free will is possible only in your dreams, that is, if they are lucid.
i have literally been arguing that the definition of free will is wrong
isn't a lucid dream still technically going on in a chemically determined mind so even then, not so much?
Zenreon117, as we've been over before, you logic is fine but your definition of free will is too weak for it to describe anything particularly interesting or that is exclusive to us.
[QUOTE=Ziks;43781569]Zenreon117, as we've been over before, you logic is fine but your definition of free will is too weak for it to describe anything particularly interesting or that is exclusive to us.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, and your definition of it is some magical process that by definition can't exist.
Besides, I've already shown how the term free will can only apply to a conscious being.
[editline]4th February 2014[/editline]
Your expectations for Free will are exactly like my diagram. You won't let up until I find some magical cloud of pixie dust floating above your head and call it free will.
[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43784701]Yeah, and your definition of it is some magical process that by definition can't exist.
Besides, I've already shown how the term free will can only apply to a conscious being.
[editline]4th February 2014[/editline]
Your expectations for Free will are exactly like my diagram. You won't let up until I find some magical cloud of pixie dust floating above your head and call it free will.[/QUOTE]
When have I ever stated my definition of free will? (Although maybe I did, but I'm not sure why I would since I don't find free will very useful as a concept).
Can someone give me a rebuttal to this: (This may have already been mentioned; I'm sorry.)
We do not have free will because the decisions we make can be based on the physical properties of which we are made. Everything we do can be calculated ahead of time, albeit it would be a very complicated calculation. Everything works according to physics, and the laws hold true at all points in space for everything.
Oh sure, quantum mechanics may introduce a bit of uncertainty into it, but regardless, we don't have control over this. (And yes there are macroscopic effects uncertainty in quantum mechanics.)
Overall, predicting our decision making is very much the same as predicting weather: They both can be predicted, but you have to take into effect chaos theory and such, and there is always a bit of uncertainty.
[QUOTE=Demx;43798459]Can someone give me a rebuttal to this: (This may have already been mentioned; I'm sorry.)
We do not have free will because the decisions we make can be based on the physical properties of which we are made. Everything we do can be calculated ahead of time, albeit it would be a very complicated calculation. Everything works according to physics, and the laws hold true at all points in space for everything.
Oh sure, quantum mechanics may introduce a bit of uncertainty into it, but regardless, we don't have control over this. (And yes there are macroscopic effects uncertainty in quantum mechanics.)
Overall, predicting our decision making is very much the same as predicting weather: They both can be predicted, but you have to take into effect chaos theory and such, and there is always a bit of uncertainty.[/QUOTE]
If you define free will as the imposition of action from the dualist self onto the physical body. Then yes. But if you define free will as the ability for a conscious being to act in various ways, then the thing which is making decisions is you, that is to say the entire system that is your body.
What I've gotten from this is that Zenreon117 is rejecting the idea of free will on the basis that for will to be "free" there has to be no inhibiting factor between the will and the action.
before I go on, would someone either confirm or deny that?
[QUOTE=wooletang;43800838]What I've gotten from this is that Zenreon117 is rejecting the idea of free will on the basis that for will to be "free" there has to be no inhibiting factor between the will and the action.
before I go on, would someone either confirm or deny that?[/QUOTE]
That isn't my stance at least. It is more that we should reject the idea that "for free will to be 'free' there has to be no inhibiting factor between the will and the action."
It seems like the same thing, but it's not.
[editline]5th February 2014[/editline]
Rather that for free will to be free, one's actions need to have a plurality of possibility, atleast within certain cases. Ultimate free will is not what is being talked about because ultimate free will IS what was stated above "to have a totally uninhibited will-action relationship.
[editline]5th February 2014[/editline]
Thus what we are refering to being free isn't some person inside driving the machine, but rather the whole system itself. My argument is based more around how we use language, than anything. Free will isn't a cut and dry on or off thing.
[editline]5th February 2014[/editline]
I am arguing that free will DOES exist.
you're arguing it on grammatical and syntactical purposes to make it so our language doesn't fall apart with the realization things just follow the rules of the universe
I don't think this is needed at all
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43800964]you're arguing it on grammatical and syntactical purposes to make it so our language doesn't fall apart with the realization things just follow the rules of the universe
I don't think this is needed at all[/QUOTE]
Why not? The establishment of the free will and relative autonomy of a being is useful to establish limits and bounds upon praise and blame within ethics.
Then again, you could say ethics isn't needed at all either, but I would disagree.
I think ethics is required.
I don't think the requirement of ethics for societal success defines free will as being possible or likely or necessary when we bend the definition of free will like you have
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