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Does free will exist?

J

Jericho Z. Barrons

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Oct 12, 2017
Do you believe in free will? Why or why not?

I do. I've heard some arguments against us having free will but it always feels like we're not talking about the same things. Like, opponents of free will have this idea about choice being reactionary, based upon this long stream of consequences that go all the way back. Or they appeal to the lack of control in those situations, our genetics, the chemical makeup of our brains, our nature vs. nurture internal narratives, etc. as if everything we do is influenced by outside factors or things we can't control, including our instincts and biology.

I feel like it misses the mark in truly capturing the nearly endless choices I have and the variations of those choices for every situation. I might choose to go about my day based on routine because based on my personality, I like routine and find it comforting, so, the choice feels less like a choice and more just something I mechanically do. But I could also lay on the ground and not move for hours, wasting the day away. Not because I'm depressed or tired or anything. It's a choice I could make, right now, prompted by nothing.

In my opinion, choice is more real and complex than the way I've heard opponents discuss it. And in the end, I'm not sure what it changes about the rules reality is based on to say "no, it doesn't exist."
 
Ooh, this is an interesting one.

Honestly, I don’t know. I certainly believe we can act with will, but it’s not entirely free - we’re all driven by factors beyond our control, whether that’s biological, neurological, social conditioning, etc.

Why do we like what we like?

Why do we take certain actions or experience certain feelings?

Do we believe other animals have free will?

Most of us go through our days and experience thoughts, feelings, reactions, etc and simply accept them - and this is how it should be. If we had to deeply question every experience we’d be completely incapacitated. Where do all of these thoughts/feelings/reactions come from, and are we in control of that?

I’ve been in therapy and practicing meditation for a little over a year now, and I’ve been perpetually shocked at how many thoughts/feelings/beliefs I have that I don’t endorse or even agree with, but I still carry them around, often without noticing. A lot of research suggests that our brains often drive us toward things that fill a compulsion but don’t make us happy. What is that compulsion, and do we really have control if we aren’t aware that we’re being influenced?

It seems like, given the enormous responsibility our brains have to process all information and keep our bodies functioning, much of it has to be on autopilot, because we simply don’t have the capacity to really address it all - we accept this pretty readily for functions like breathing, but it’s also happening in our thoughts and emotions.

I don’t have any answers, just more questions, lol.
 
LydiaTessaro said:
I don’t have any answers, just more questions, lol.
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They're great questions. I just made this topic because I was getting frustrated by a CosmicSkeptic video but you actually made me step back and reassess. ^^;;

Because I do believe in the subconscious mind and the theory of the interplay between the Ego, Super Ego, and the Id. That whole shadow business is fascinating, especially when we consider the different ways we act hypocritical or justify things we don't tolerate from others. That there are parts of ourselves we reject and don't acknowledge... but they're still parts of us and they affect our decisions.

Thank you for this input. I had forgotten about all of that and it complicates things for my own opinion to acknowledge not all choices we make are consciously done.
 
Tough one... honestly I find causal determinism pretty compelling. We are our brains, and our experiences are chemical responses, all of which are subject to physical laws. So, like Laplace's famous 'demon,' an entity with perfect knowledge of the physical laws of the universe and perfect knowledge of the location and momentum of every molecule could accurately predict the future.

I'm less sure of whether or not that matters. Weirdly, I think the second Matrix movie put it in a pretty satisfying way: we make our own choices, but we've already made them. Now we're just seeing them through.
 
I think so, at least I'd like to think so.

I think Lydia made very compelling arguments, it's shocking how much you process without thinking about it, how much you have to just to get through the day but I do believe we have a choice, we can choose to think more on them. Fact of it is, we all have different priorities, so the things we find important to us are generally the ones we devote our limited thought processes to, the ones we struggle with the most, the ones that we take more of a stance on.

When I think of not having free will, ultimately, I can't help but think of the inspirational tales you read about, or maybe get to witness first hand. People with terrible lots in life, disabilities that should control their actions and lifestyle but they just don't let them. A small example, I like fighting games, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. I was watching a tournament, I think it was Evo a couple of years back and in one of the matches, one of the players was completely blind. By all rights, playing a fighting game blind seems impossible. I'm not sure why he was blind, it could be genetics, could have been a mishap in the recent or distant past, but either way, he was there, he competed, he was actually quite good. I choose to believe that is an example of free will, something overwhelming in his life was telling him he can't do that, shouldn't do that, he did it anyway. Another, related to games, there is a streamer of Dead by Daylight that has been diagnosed with ALS, it's progressed quite far and he can't use his hands very well anymore but he continued streaming, he still plays the game and entertains the stream, using foot pedals. He's going against what life gave him, what is that if not free will in action?

I think we get choices to make ever day, and some of them are harder than others, but when we choose the harder path, when we try to work on something, I honestly believe that's free will. Might be a bad take, definitely not an expert, but I'll stand by it.
 
I believe we can do what we will ourselves to do but we can't will our own will, if that makes any sense. And with that, I bid you adieu.
 
In my experience, if you are willing to accept the consequences then free will exists. But we tend to be wired to follow the crowd, do what is expected, etc. This isn't always a bad thing as we are programmed for survival, free will may well be our undoing, but it exists.

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" - Kris Kristofferson (made popular by Janis Joplin)
 
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Quasi-scientific people who say we do n't have free will always sound kinda silly to me. For once, we don't life in a perfect Newtonian world. True randomness exists, in a way - you can't perfectly compute the outcome of a system if you have perfect knowledge of the initial state. In quantum mechanics things are always random, that's part of the science down there.

But even if that wouldn't be the case it's a silly thing to say. What if we'd life in a perfectly Newtonian world, a world where a Mega computer could take a freezeframe of the world and accurately compute future outcomes? Even then it'd be impossible to compute faster than time goes on - or to perfectly measure a system without heavily disturning it.

When people say we don't have free will you gotta ask for their definition of the latter.
 
Well, first of all how we understand free will? What is it for us?


What makes us think, that what we do is free will? This topic was created from the free will? Is my answer my free will? When someone killed himself, it is always his free will? Free will would be something which is not decisioned by your emotions, or your will.

If I want to be more specific, your mind and heart are influenced by everything around you and you make decision according to it. So, we live in illusion of free will, while we are ruled by our learned behavior. Sometimes we are able to go against these feelings and instincts and that is flash of true free will, I would guess.

I think Lydia was more accurate with her part. But my thoughts are similar or nearly same.
 
I have similar feelings on the matter to Hrairoo's; arguments based on causal determinism tend to feel like an oversimplification of what is involved in human decision making. If you abstract the human brain as a machine, which takes some inputs and generates outputs sure free will seems like a farcical concept. To a degree, that's what the human brain does of course, we take inputs and use them in conscious and subconscious ways to generate our output decisions. To me though, what that abstraction lacks is a consideration of the degree to which we are capable of self-awareness and conscious rejection or acceptance of our default instincts, and that's where our 'free will' comes from.

That being said, some might argue that even if we seem to consciously choose to reject our initial instinct in favor of another course of action ('acting off our free will') that the decision to do that is still caused by some other causal factor, and thus we still have not exercised any free will. If you were entirely omniscient you likely could comprehend every minutiae of someone's mind, conscious and unconscious, to the degree that you could precisely predict their behavior and thus act in perfect manipulation of it, meaning they truly would have no free will. But, nobody is omniscient, even to their own conscious and subconscious decision making. We can achieve a certain degree of awareness and understanding of a given person, but never a perfect one. We all have a portion (a large one I would argue) of ourselves which we cannot perceive or be aware of, or perceive of in others. That nebulous, unreachable thing is what gives us (functionally) free will, because nobody can influence us to the degree that our own decisions are not in the end made based on that inconceivable nebula of our own minds. In the end, our decisions are thus still ours, and that's what's important.
 
In case anyone is interested, the novel Blindsight (available for free, even) by Peter Watts deals with this question. It suggests that free will is an illusion; indeed that our entire consciousness is just something our brain layered on top of a bunch of deterministic subconscious processes.
 
Our Father said:
In case anyone is interested, the novel Blindsight (available for free, even) by Peter Watts deals with this question. It suggests that free will is an illusion; indeed that our entire consciousness is just something our brain layered on top of a bunch of deterministic subconscious processes.
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Thank you for the book recommendation. Could you maybe give a better breakdown of the arguments he uses so that we can discuss them?
 
He's I believe we do. I had the option to not respond to this thread but I did. Same goes for bigger things in life.

The idea that are destiny of fate has been written in some way is a cop out to me.
 
Well, yes we have free will.....assuming there not some Cosmic Something that created the Universe and Everything and US.

In your daily life you do have the Free Will to do anything. Most people don't....but that is by thier own choice.
 
I believe we do have Free Will.

However, that Free Will is also tempered by rationale and the ability to consider consequences, which may then lead to the notion that Free Will is an illusion.

Using my Free Will, I can choose to do whatever I want. However, that choice comes with its own series of effects and consequences. Thus my choices are affected by this knowledge.
 
Wow, three interesting threads in a row. Short answer; HA! NERP! Long answer; You don't have free will, but don't worry. There's peace in it's meaningless. This is mainly a science and physics based answer but the ideas of free will is both contradictory and incompatible with the laws of nature and entirely meaningless. Uncertainty is a factor, life is not preordained. Einstein may have believed in predeterminism, but we have proven the unpredictability of electrons. No, there is no destiny either. There is only a you and while you make your choices, your choices are inevitably influenced by outside forces. Societal pressure to conform (Like in a lot of modern politics in general, dont care what "Side" your on your guilty.) or the natural pressures of a predator or perceived threat. Free will is only found, I believe in philosophical principality. To look at a sheet of paper and BURN your personal values onto it. STARE at that paper and BURN your values into your mind. And LIVE based on those values and ONLY those values. Then again, is it free will? Or self programming? Edit: Upon reflection, I lean towards this method being the indoctrination of self. So ya, I don't believe in free will.
 
Yes we do but at times are judgement can be clouded by various things and it effects the way we might respond to a situation. Still pays even if you are getting heated to take a step back but some people can't or won't. Some will blame drugs or alcohol as well which in turn they decided to use of their own free will.
 
I love how the argument against free will is the retribution against that action. If it is only our desire for self survival holding us back from free will that in itself proves that free will must exist. In which I mean while we can have thoughts that seem counter to our continued life such as myself jumping off a cliff, veering into oncoming traffic. I would not do so, not because I couldn't. It would because the future interests me more, and thus pushes my desire to not harm myself or others.

Though many tragedies have happened due to people saying screw social issues I am going to get my revenge on those who wronged me or have perceived to wrong me then committed acts that would be outside what one should consider a reasonable response. If you can choose despite the consequences do as you please then there is free will just most people are predictable due to a soft nature (I hate when I accidentally harm someone even by unintentional actions.). Or a drug addiction, ect.
 
If by definition free will is the ability to choose your action (even if it is inaction) in any given situation, then yes it does exist.

That is of course, assuming absolute zero outside influence that might push you to take a given direction.

Free will is a bit of a misnomer IMO. By nature humans are social/tribal creatures, where the norms of what is acceptable and what is not are instilled into us at a very early age. Something done during our formative years to guide us into who we become in the future.

So yes, the ability to choose to deviate from those teachings is there, but then it more transforms into 'will someone choose do so'. Less so on the existence of free will itself and more someone taking that first step away from the path they currently walk and forge a new one. Some do, which does give credence to the existence of free will as a concept, not so much an absolute.

That's my take anyway. And it might reflect on things people touched on above (and if so, I apologize if it seems like I ripped off, but I honestly just started typing because I like this topic a lot).
 
A pointless question with dangerous implications ("I was just following orders").

Always act as if you have free will. No one said it would always be easy.
 
Jerram said:
A pointless question with dangerous implications ("I was just following orders").

Always act as if you have free will. No one said it would always be easy.
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Kinda wild to necro a nearly two years old thread with such a (ironically) pointless reply.
 
Violet or Vi said:
Kinda wild to necro a nearly two years old thread with such a (ironically) pointless reply.
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kinda wild to reply and add to said thread. it sure would be a shame if someone wanted to continue the conversation in a harmless fashion.
 
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