Is there Free Will?

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: sm8000
Needs login

Weird... I didn't have to log in and I'm not on campus. Must have a cookie system.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff
I'm almost shocked. Just hope they don't make it a job requirement to understand fundamental aspects of nature.

Right, because only you know how things work. Everyone else - not so much. Let me guess, your degree has 'neuro' printed on it somewhere, so you got a free God complex in the mail?

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
Right, because only you know how things work.

Not at all true, many people can figure this out. Walk around and ask a bunch of people if free will exists, you will probably get at least a few that say no. These are the 'correct' people, you are amongst the 'incorrect' people.

 

[superunknown98]

Is't Free will not about the choices you make, but the choices you can make? It doesnt matter if i drink nothing but beer, what matters is that at any given moment i could choose to drink vodka. I don't see how it matters if my enviroment predisposes me towards one choice or the other, as long as choices exist.

 

[Zolty]

If free will does exist then go us, if it doesn't then we are ment to believe it does.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: superunknown98
what matters is that at any given moment i could choose to drink vodka. I don't see how it matters if my enviroment predisposes me towards one choice or the other, as long as choices exist.

You can't choose to drink vodka unless your environment 'predisposed' you to make that choice. Every choice has a deterministic subconscious cause. You can change your mind, but not through anything that could be considered 'free will', merely a switch in the brain which you couldn't have possibly stopped. Being able to recondition the state of your mind regardless of the factors of it's current state would violate laws of physics, it's not possible to have free will as such.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff
Not at all true, many people can figure this out. Walk around and ask a bunch of people if free will exists, you will probably get at least a few that say no. These are the 'correct' people, you are amongst the 'incorrect' people.

You are amongst those who would like to believe it doesn't because this position enables you to act as a weak-minded individual, shirking all personal responsibility.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: NanoStuff
Not at all true, many people can figure this out. Walk around and ask a bunch of people if free will exists, you will probably get at least a few that say no. These are the 'correct' people, you are amongst the 'incorrect' people.

You are amongst those who would like to believe it doesn't because this position enables you to act as a weak-minded individual, shirking all personal responsibility.

I find that resolving reality and making the best of it makes me a strong-minded individual.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff
I find that resolving reality and making the best of it makes me a strong-minded individual.

You're not resolving reality - you decided what you would like reality to be and resolved that your findings should match. After all, you can't make the best of it if you don't have free will, can you?

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
You're not resolving reality - you decided what you would like reality to be and resolved that your findings should match.

Nope, I am resolving indeed. I'm using what they call the 'scientific method' to make reasonable deductions, as I explained above in the vodka post. You on the other hand are making conclusions based on your discomfort of the alternate idea

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff
Nope, I am resolving indeed. I'm using what they call the 'scientific method' to make reasonable deductions, as I explained above in the vodka post. You on the other hand are making conclusions based on your discomfort of the alternate idea

No, you cannot resolve anything. You are simply an automaton interacting with your environment. Similarly, I can't make any conclusions based on my discomfort because I am an automaton interacting with my environment.

My perspective: I'm choosing to procrastinate right now because grading 910 homework problems is a PITA. I'm tired from working through the night last night, which isn't helping my motivation level.

Your perspective: Since I didn't sleep last night, my brain's deterministic machinations are inexorably steering me towards posting gibberish in an internet forum rather than doing my work. I will continue doing so until I eventually give up on grading and go to bed.

How do you propose we test your hypothesis, oh great scientist?

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: NanoStuff
Nope, I am resolving indeed. I'm using what they call the 'scientific method' to make reasonable deductions, as I explained above in the vodka post. You on the other hand are making conclusions based on your discomfort of the alternate idea

No, you cannot resolve anything. You are simply an automaton interacting with your environment. Similarly, I can't make any conclusions based on my discomfort because I am an automaton interacting with my environment.

My perspective: I'm choosing to procrastinate right now because grading 910 homework problems is a PITA. I'm tired from working through the night last night, which isn't helping my motivation level.

Your perspective: Since I didn't sleep last night, my brain's deterministic machinations are inexorably steering me towards posting gibberish in an internet forum rather than doing my work. I will continue doing so until I eventually give up on grading and go to bed.

How do you propose we test your hypothesis, oh great scientist?

Seriously, I think you just need to amend the list in your signature.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Seriously, I think you just need to amend the list in your signature.

Not just yet... If this guy can actually come up with a way to scientifically test a philosophical hypothesis, he might be worth talking to.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Seriously, I think you just need to amend the list in your signature.

Not just yet... If this guy can actually come up with a way to scientifically test a philosophical hypothesis, he might be worth talking to.

Yeah.... it could make for an interesting conversation.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Yeah.... it could make for an interesting conversation.

I was praying for sarcasm in that thread. If not, then he'll be added shortly to the list.

 

[NanoStuff]

Block the truth my friend, block the truth. You know you want to.

 

[gerwen]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
Right, because only you know how things work.

Not at all true, many people can figure this out. Walk around and ask a bunch of people if free will exists, you will probably get at least a few that say no. These are the 'correct' people, you are amongst the 'incorrect' people.

Care to show us the incontrovertible evidence of this 'scientific fact' you claim? Until there is undeniable evidence shown, your two types of people change from correct and incorrect, to 'agree with me' and 'disagree with me'

Your correct version of the free will debate assumes that given any decision or situation we are presented with, there is only one choice we will make, based on everything we know and experience to that point.

Ever changed your mind, once you thought about something more? Just the fact we can choose a different path, with no extra relevant external stimulus, points towards free will. We use the same brain, with the same information in it, and come up with a different result.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: gerwen
Care to show us the incontrovertible evidence of this 'scientific fact' you claim? Until there is undeniable evidence shown, your two types of people change from correct and incorrect, to 'agree with me' and 'disagree with me'

Your correct version of the free will debate assumes that given any decision or situation we are presented with, there is only one choice we will make, based on everything we know and experience to that point.

Ever changed your mind, once you thought about something more? Just the fact we can choose a different path, with no extra relevant external stimulus, points towards free will. We use the same brain, with the same information in it, and come up with a different result.

As B2B said, do not feed the bears.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: gerwenEver changed your mind, once you thought about something more? Just the fact we can choose a different path, with no extra relevant external stimulus, points towards free will. We use the same brain, with the same information in it, and come up with a different result.

Interesting argument. Does that mean that computer chips have free will? There is a style of branch prediction called "prophet-critic", in which you have a fast, simple branch predictor, and a more complicated but more accurate one. When the CPU hits a branch, the prophet makes a prediction, and then a few cycles later, the critic can decide that the prophet was wrong and redirect the CPU down the other path of the branch.

Obviously computer chips don't have free will - but isn't it possible that your fully-pre-determined mind used a similar technique (it used a little bit of the information it had to come to a conclusion, but later used more information to get to a different conclusion).

 

[CSMR]

The popular arguments about free will are unsurprisingly not very perceptive. There are several possible meanings of free will and if it is not stated which one one is using having an argument won't be very edifying.

One meaning is having the ability to choose the actions one takes, or at least some of them. People, according to this theory, have various actions they can take from which they choose some. A very important exposition of this theory is in decision theory (used all the time in economic theory). The way decision theories work in general is to specify a set of things an agent can do (the choice set) and then describe what the agent will do given those choices and given other factors such as information. Note that such theories are completely compatible with determinism and to a large extent give a deterministic mechanism (the decision rule).
Also note that they are also completely compatible with a theological determinism (everything being God-caused), including Lutheran/Calvinistic forms. Denying this sort of free will is also compatible with Lutheranism and Calvinism.

The second important meaning of free will is that a person has the ability to choose his own nature. This is often encountered in theologies in which people can make themselves into better people. (To put it simply.) I believe that the having the ability to choose one's own nature is not possible, because if there is choice (see above) then it is determined by nature and not the other way round. I think it is a confusion to see it as determining nature. (However, that choices can affect various properties of a person over time is not controversial.) This notion of free will is often presented as fundamentally contradicting determinism; I think the notion is too confused to make such statements.

The particular case of being able to choose how good a person one is to be is theologically important. For this debate in the history of the church, look up the dispute between Augustine and Pelagius and much later between Luther and Erasmus. (I recommend Luther's book On the Bondage of the Will, it is vituperative but extremely cogent argument.) I would say this sort of free will theology is wrong because human life does not have an inherent capacity for good. Good is present in our relation to God of grace and forgiveness, not our lives themselves. Lives (or other aspects of the world) can reflect this, but a reflection is not the thing itself and is also not something completely objective but a matter of interpretation.

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: net
tell your friend he isn't very religious if he thinks there is no free will. how can he choose to accept God? no one gets judged if they can't choose. lol, what would they be judged about?

All sort of judgements can be made about all sorts of things. The Christian last judgement has to do with judgements about goodness=faith and grace, badness=nature and unbelief, rather than choices.

Originally posted by: ZeroIQ
If you're friend was a religion fanatic, he would have to know a little about the Bible - which clearly states that God gave man free will.

I don't think so. Please quote it if it is so clear. And don't quote from between the lines!

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: gerwen
Care to show us the incontrovertible evidence of this 'scientific fact' you claim?

The 'evidence' is self evident, there's nothing more to prove apart from causality, which is the proof you're looking for. This doesn't necessarily mean the future is entirely deterministic, but it is very predictable given sufficient information. The fundamental randomness of nature cannot ensure the same results twice, so it's incorrect to say your fate is sealed, however this uncertainty does not permit you any sort of free will as you have no control over these natural processes, whether random or not.

Look into CTho9305's post. It's the same idea. A computer cannot have free will because it's 'will' is entirely dependant on it's construction and the input it is given. It decides what it was built to decide, there can be no other way. Our decisions are far more complex, that is true, but still limited to the same causal forces of nature. If your mind was 'simulated' on a computer, you would feel free as ever, even though you would have no control over the processes of the hardware simulating you. It's the software and hardware that would be guiding your every move despite your illusion that you have any control of it whatsoever, no different than the natural processes guiding your every move now.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Free Will is often just arguing semantics.

We are free to chose based upon what choices are given us. If that is free will, then we have it. But many people do not view that as free will, but rather free choice.

Consider this: Did you will yourself into existance? Can you will yourself to become the richest man in the world? Can you will yourself wings and fly away? Of course not. We can only choose between the choices that are placed in front of us. That is it!

The next question becomes, is our choice "free". I would say it is not free, because certain things have a great pull on your choice. For instance, fatty mcfatty likes donuts. He is already a lardass and wants to cut down, but when a donut is placed in front of face he has a greater pull to do eat it, rather than not eat it. So his will was governed by his instincts to eat (taste buds, emotion confort, etc...)

Whatever the case, our will is limited.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: CSMR

Originally posted by: net
tell your friend he isn't very religious if he thinks there is no free will. how can he choose to accept God? no one gets judged if they can't choose. lol, what would they be judged about?

All sort of judgements can be made about all sorts of things. The Christian last judgement has to do with judgements about goodness=faith and grace, badness=nature and unbelief, rather than choices.

Originally posted by: ZeroIQ
If you're friend was a religion fanatic, he would have to know a little about the Bible - which clearly states that God gave man free will.

I don't think so. Please quote it if it is so clear. And don't quote from between the lines!

I don't attempt to derail, but "most" christians might believe your first statement, but I certainly don't and am still a "Christian", though I would probably be thrown out of 90% of all churches for Heresy. I don't believe in eternal hell (the idea is absurd to say the least) nor do I believe that God annihilates those who do not believe in the One. But if God is so all powerfull, surely he can save all? Of course he can and I believe he will.

Also, I agree, there is no scripture to say we have a "free will"... In fact, there is scripture to suggest we DON'T have a free will (Romans 9).

 

[GPett]

I hated logic and philospohy merely because they threw out common assumptions that should be taken for granted.

They argue that we cannot prove anything outside of our own contiousness. Out lives could be some huge halucination that every other living being (wich we dont know are real) could or couldn't corroborate.

I think that based on the corroboration and communication with other sentient beings we can come to some common conclusions.

So, if someone accepts that there are other sentient beings, and that they interact with them... it is safe to assume that we are not all having some mass halucination because we can corroborate our experiences.

With the above assumption we can conclude that indeed we are all individuals and not a collective halucination.

So, assuming we are all individuals we do have free will. If we are a mass halucination we do not have free will.

The perfect example is peer review. The most accepted and trusted studies are subject to peer review process. A study that is accepted by peers is widely accepted as possible. The fact that we use the same basis to prove new theory as we use to convince ourselves that we exist speaks volumes to how much weight we can put on the idea of corroborating percieved information with other percieved sentient beings.