Do you believe in free will?

[SinisterPledge]

Inspired by the thread of whether you believe in miracles or not, here's another philosophical question for you.

Here's my answer:

It's mostly ramble, but my thoughts aren't always crystal clear and it's a complex question. I hope it makes some sense at least. I'm gonna try to write a more coherent text when I have the time, anyway, here goes:


What happens to everyone in our daily lives, whether it be ordinary or life-changing events, is simply the result of an ENORMOUS and unfathomable web of consequences. Every act directly or indirectly changes the pattern and spreads like waves to affect hundreds and thousands of lives. There is no fate, or rather, your fate is not sealed, and can change just as you and anyone else can change the web which guides our lives until we die. A logic conclusing from that thesis is that we have no, or at least very little free will. It's mostly a delusion. Whenever you are presented with a situation where you think you have free will, that situation was presented because of several previous decisions made by you and others, tracing back days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries. The choices you think you have are limited by what other people have done before you (a chain of consequences). You THINK you have an independent mind, but what you ultimately decide to do in a situation is actually a CONSEQUENCE of your previous experiences, which has formed the person you are at that point, and those experiences are in turn just a history of consequences made by yourself or others. Everyone is a part of the web, and everyone changes it. You can't run from it, you are a slave to it, your entire existence and life is a CONSEQUENCE. The very person you are is the result of consequences. The fact that I made this thread is a consequence. Your free will is a delusion that you think you have a choice in what to do, but it's all locked, sealed and governed by the web of consequences. I wish we had free will, I really do.

If you don't think about it, it's very easy to convince yourself, or live ignorant to the fact that you lack free will, and maybe you're better off living in that delusion. Really. But once you start to look further, you realize it's a lot more complex than that, and once you go down that road, there's no turning back...

All this leads to the question: who/what was the first event or choice that started the chain of consequences we live with today. Who created the web, was it just the "lack of cleaning" or is there a "Spider"? (hurr hurr). Buuuuut that question belongs in an other thread....

Anyway, this is meant to be a discussion, so what do YOU think. 🙂

 

[Robb Stark]

What happens to everyone in our daily lives, whether it be ordinary or life-changing events, is simply the result of an ENORMOUS and unfathomable web of consequences. Every act directly or indirectly changes the pattern and spreads like waves to affect hundreds and thousands of lives. There is no fate, or rather, your fate is not sealed, and can change just as you and anyone else can change the web which guides our lives until we die. A logic conclusing from that thesis is that we have no, or at least very little free will. It's mostly a delusion. Whenever you are presented with a situation where you think you have free will, that situation was presented because of several previous decisions made by you and others, tracing back days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries. The choices you think you have are limited by what other people have done before you (a chain of consequences). You THINK you have an independent mind, but what you ultimately decide to do in a situation is actually a CONSEQUENCE of your previous experiences, which has formed the person you are at that point, and those experiences are in turn just a history of consequences made by yourself or others. Everyone is a part of the web, and everyone changes it. You can't run from it, you are a slave to it, your entire existence and life is a CONSEQUENCE. The very person you are is the result of consequences. The fact that I made this thread is a consequence. Your free will is a delusion that you think you have a choice in what to do, but it's all locked, sealed and governed by the web of consequences. I wish we had free will, I really do.

We the best we can with what we have. Mostly, what you say is (in my humble opinion of course) is probably right. Past events, far too numerous to even fathom, play a much larger role in our everyday lives than the vast majority of us probably even think about. Just about everything we're presented with in life can be traced back to different sequences of events, big and small. And those events can be traced back, and so on and so forth. I'm not disputing that.

But that doesn't mean that I don't have free will. Right now, today, at this second, I have complete free will. I can choose to keep typing (seems likely), or I can stop. I can do anything I want to do. I can go for a swim, read a book, see a movie, anything. Sure, there are prior events that are already a part of history that have brought me to this point, to whatever decision I make next, but what I do from here, now, is MY decision.

And if you believe that free will doesn't exist? Well, then what's the point of anything? Why even bother with life? Why try to succeed, why fall in love, why live, if all we are is along for the ride? Doesn't make sense to me.

I don't believe in fate, I don't think there's any kind of "master plan" and I have some pretty big issues with the whole "god" thing, but one thing I really, truly, from-the-depths-of-my-soul believe in is free will. Willpower is the single most powerful force in this world. It's what we do, right here and right now, that truly matters, and that's because it's our choice.

Does free will exist? No doubt in my mind.

 

[ashleigh]

No, I don't believe in free will. Mostly because none of us chose to be here at all. How can we have free will if we didn''t even choose to be here in the first place? I guess we have the free will to leave this world if we choose, but no one should feel forced to have to make that choice.

Always Bangel
And if you believe that free will doesn't exist? Well, then what's the point of anything? Why even bother with life? Why try to succeed, why fall in love, why live, if all we are is along for the ride? Doesn't make sense to me.

We try to suceed because we're biologically made to want to continue the human race. We fall in love because we want to make new life. (Yes, we don't have to be in love to do this, but I think most people would rather have kids with someone they love than a random stranger). Seeing as we're biologically made to want these things, I don't think that's really free will. Sure, some people choose not to have kids, but this is probably biological too. Nature has to have some way of controlling population. The worlds overpopulated as it is...imagine if every single person had at least one kid without fail 😱

(Okay, I'm kind of just rambling here, but that's my initial thoughts 😛)

 

[dexeded]

What happens to everyone in our daily lives, whether it be ordinary or life-changing events, is simply the result of an ENORMOUS and unfathomable web of consequences. Every act directly or indirectly changes the pattern and spreads like waves to affect hundreds and thousands of lives. There is no fate, or rather, your fate is not sealed, and can change just as you and anyone else can change the web which guides our lives until we die. A logic conclusing from that thesis is that we have no, or at least very little free will. It's mostly a delusion. Whenever you are presented with a situation where you think you have free will, that situation was presented because of several previous decisions made by you and others, tracing back days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries. The choices you think you have are limited by what other people have done before you (a chain of consequences). You THINK you have an independent mind, but what you ultimately decide to do in a situation is actually a CONSEQUENCE of your previous experiences, which has formed the person you are at that point, and those experiences are in turn just a history of consequences made by yourself or others. Everyone is a part of the web, and everyone changes it. You can't run from it, you are a slave to it, your entire existence and life is a CONSEQUENCE. The very person you are is the result of consequences. The fact that I made this thread is a consequence. Your free will is a delusion that you think you have a choice in what to do, but it's all locked, sealed and governed by the web of consequences. I wish we had free will, I really do.

Haha, you sound just like my sis. My response is the same: I believe that much of what you say is correct, but I still believe that even with centuries of genes built up, human behaviour is still not that predictable. We can choose, and there are usually several choices that are within our possibly predetermined character/personality to make.

 

[kittenpoker]

First of all, great thread! And also, I love your motto Frooley (go the big lebowski!)

Ok, now to business....

While I really like Fred's "you're evitable" stance - I have to say that I fall more into the fate belief. I think or point of view is quite limited as to what is *really* going on.... it's impossible - from this vantage point - to see the whole picture. So, really it's kind of a guessing game. But I like the web (and what a tangled one we weave) analogy....

I like to use water... ripples, waves, a current etc... but yeah the waters of life carries us and we try our best to stay afloat. 🙂

 

[Tueuse de Vampires]

To an extend, yes, but not very much.

Mostly, we are the product of our genes, which leads to a whole array of preferences, thinking styles and values. Since it does influence the way we think, I do think determinism has it pretty much down, that your whole life is pretty much predictable. There are actually psychological studies about this (I'm a psych student). I remember one in which people in one task were asked to just raise their arm at random times in an experiment whenever they felt like it (thus: free will). During the whole experiment they measured brain activity. What they found was that before people became aware of making an active decision to judge, there was a spike in brain activity already hundreds of milliseconds before.

Here's a nice quote from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet) about all this:

As of 2008, the upcoming outcome of a decision could be found in study of the brain activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 7 seconds before the subject was aware of their decision.[5]

Basically, what these experiments come down to is that decision are made on an unconscious level, and free will is just an illusion. However, it was also found that we do have the chance to put a stop to certain decision, a sort of emergency break to them which could be called free will. But yea, compared to all the other processes at work, this would play a rather small part in everything.

 

[Robb Stark]

I'm not saying that we control absolutely everything in our lives. Clearly that isn't the case. For the most part, we can't control or do much about the actions that others take that affect us. We're often thrust into situations that we didn't plan or choose to be in, but I firmly believe that where we go from those situations is up to us. The choices we have aren't always pleasant or fun to make, but they're still there.

Also, a thought I forgot to mention in my first post, if we go by the notion that free will doesn't really exist, or that we have virtually none of it, then by that belief nothing is really anyone's fault. A serial killer bears no responsibility for his crimes, because he didn't really "choose" it? Come on. I refuse to believe that. And what's the point of working hard at anything then? Why try to get that promotion, or earn that "A" in class, because really, we have no say in the matter? I'm sorry, and maybe I'm missing something, but that just sounds ridiculous to me.

 

[ashleigh]

As for the question of whether serial killers have a choice, this horizon documentary about the 'evil gene" might be interesting. http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...Pvwi853bkFlgt_OYg&sig2=k2T9OqwXA0U0E_bK6IKOug

Not that im trying to condone murder. I just think that if someone is biologically hardwired to do something, then this takes away some aspect of free will.

Since i think ive put my pov across, and dont think i can add anymore on the topic, i wont post in this thread again, to avoid an unproductive back and forth 😉

 

[Robb Stark]

As for the question of whether serial killers have a choice, this horizon documentary about the 'evil gene" might be interesting. http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...Pvwi853bkFlgt_OYg&sig2=k2T9OqwXA0U0E_bK6IKOug

Not that im trying to condone murder. I just think that if someone is biologically hardwired to do something, then this takes away some aspect of free will.

Since i think ive put my pov across, and dont think i can add anymore on the topic, i wont post in this thread again, to avoid an unproductive back and forth 😉

Fair enough. I'm not trying to argue. And serial killers was just one example (although I don't think anyone is hardwired to be "evil". They may have something wrong with them that makes them view the world in a different light, but I still think it's a choice). My point was more that if we accept that free will doesn't exist, then that by extension means that personal responsibility doesn't exist. That nothing is ever our fault. That just doesn't work for me.

But I get that at it's core, this is mostly going to be about personal opinion, and that's fine. I'm not saying that genetics and other factors don't play a part in our lives, but I just think, in my own view, that we're the masters of our own destinies, for better or worse.

 

[dexeded]

[MENTION=11975]Always Bangel[/MENTION]

Going by 'we have no free will', it means it is part of your predetermined personality to not/refuse to believe it. Part of your personality to not stand down, to not think 'what's the point?'. Thus there is a point--if you believe there is. The actual truth may be you have no free will in believing there is a point, because it is inconceivable/impossible to believe otherwise if you are to live your life. And yeah, it does mean no one is responsible for anything, good or bad, and everything that goes on is basically clockwork.

Not that I totally agree with the 'no free will' thing, just saying what it means.

 

[SinisterPledge]

But that doesn't mean that I don't have free will. Right now, today, at this second, I have complete free will. I can choose to keep typing (seems likely), or I can stop. I can do anything I want to do. I can go for a swim, read a book, see a movie, anything. Sure, there are prior events that are already a part of history that have brought me to this point, to whatever decision I make next, but what I do from here, now, is MY decision.

Then why don't you? Why don't you read a book instead,watch a movie or go for a swim? Why do you keep typing and not those other things? Sure you can rabble up a lot of different activities but you only actually do one. I know where getting into deep water here when it comes to philosophy and this is when the shit starts to get crazy but seriously. Lets imagine I'm right and your free will is just an illusion, then you already unconsciously know what you're going to do, but because you're not lacking imagination nor intelligence, you can still think of other things to do. Your brain is capable of creating an illusion that you have multiple choices, but you really don't.

And if you believe that free will doesn't exist? Well, then what's the point of anything? Why even bother with life? Why try to succeed, why fall in love, why live, if all we are is along for the ride? Doesn't make sense to me.

Why indeed. Well many people give up, but I think there's a better explanation than that. It lies in our primitive human nature. We have concious and unconscious needs to eat, hunt, mate, communicate, and lead. There are several studies that prove that romantic feelings and attraction have strong links to our primitive need of mating. Strong men signalises that said man will make strong children. That is the main reason for why many women going for the well-fit men. Sorry for supporting stereotypes and whatnot, it's not my intention to insult anyone, I'm just trying to make a point.

Why succeed? Well different people have different levels of ambition, which can be traced back to the fact that we are pack animals. Some people are born to lead, others to follow, while some are stuck in the middle. It is in our nature to rise in the pack, it's just that the pack has now become our society.

The same goes for living. Our nature tells us to. Our drives, sex, pleasure, eating, etc etc, keeps us going forward.

Willpower is the single most powerful force in this world. It's what we do, right here and right now, that truly matters, and that's because it's our choice.

Well I agree with you on one thing, what we do now does matter, but I BELIEVE we don't really have a choice. Willpower is far from the most powerful thing in this world, and it is easily broken, there's plenty of evidence of that (points at hundreds of Jews being escorted by a squad of armed German troops, none tries to escape or overwhelm the guards).

Does free will exist? No doubt in my mind.

Well of course you have no doubt! You don't really have a choice do you! 😀 😉

First of all, great thread! And also, I love your motto Frooley (go the big lebowski!)

Ok, now to business....

While I really like Fred's "you're evitable" stance - I have to say that I fall more into the fate belief. I think or point of view is quite limited as to what is *really* going on.... it's impossible - from this vantage point - to see the whole picture. So, really it's kind of a guessing game. But I like the web (and what a tangled one we weave) analogy....

I like to use water... ripples, waves, a current etc... but yeah the waters of life carries us and we try our best to stay afloat. 🙂

Haha yeah dude (or dudette)!

Well yeah it is a guessing game really. We won't know until science comes up with some indisputable evidence/discovery or god(s) shows himself/herself/itself/themselves. It's pretty far out man! 😎

To an extend, yes, but not very much.

Here's a nice quote from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet) about all this:


Basically, what these experiments come down to is that decision are made on an unconscious level, and free will is just an illusion. However, it was also found that we do have the chance to put a stop to certain decision, a sort of emergency break to them which could be called free will. But yea, compared to all the other processes at work, this would play a rather small part in everything.

That's really interesting man, I'll take a closer look at that study but it seems I just got some hard facts 😀


(well now kittenpoker got me thinking of the big lebowski and I have to stop myself from typing like the Dude... 😛)

Also, a thought I forgot to mention in my first post, if we go by the notion that free will doesn't really exist, or that we have virtually none of it, then by that belief nothing is really anyone's fault. A serial killer bears no responsibility for his crimes, because he didn't really "choose" it? Come on. I refuse to believe that. And what's the point of working hard at anything then? Why try to get that promotion, or earn that "A" in class, because really, we have no say in the matter? I'm sorry, and maybe I'm missing something, but that just sounds ridiculous to me.

Fair enough. I'm not trying to argue. And serial killers was just one example (although I don't think anyone is hardwired to be "evil". They may have something wrong with them that makes them view the world in a different light, but I still think it's a choice). My point was more that if we accept that free will doesn't exist, then that by extension means that personal responsibility doesn't exist. That nothing is ever our fault. That just doesn't work for me.

Well, at it's core, no he is not responsible for it. Why he murdered that person is not his fault. There are lots of different aspects as to why he made the kill, and if there's no free will then you can't really blame him. But that's not the society we live in. We don't live in a lawless anarchy, we live in a civilised world (relatively civilised in my opinion) where murder is outlawed. Why? Because we could not have formed a society if people were running around killing each other. So how do you hinder this? You outlaw it, thus building a wall, establishing a structure. This "structure" has CONSEQUENCES. Many potential murderers are hindered by this structure and it has saved a lot of lives, but not all.

I know it sounds weird, but there's an explanation to that, and I will use a quote, because someone before me already said it better:

"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common" - John Locke.

By that I mean that the notion that no murderer is responsible for his crime sounds strange/stupid/horrible is because we and our forefathers have lived our entire lives in a society where murder is a crime and the murderer is responsible for his actions. But as the philosophical debate continues and scientists do what scientists do, we have to be ready to question and perhaps remove our ideals.

 

[Robb Stark]

[MENTION=11961]Frooley[/MENTION]: Yeah, it is getting pretty deep, but that's cool. I think that this whole discussion, at it's core, hinges on personal opinion, not fact. I suppose, putting my own views and thoughts aside, that my entire belief about free will and willpower in general could all just be part of some grand illusion to make me think like that. Sure, that possibility exists. But at the end of the day, that's something we all need to decide upon for ourselves, and for me, I just don't believe it. It's kind of simplistic, but I believe what I see in front of me. And right now, there's nothing stopping me or causing me to do or not do anything. But that's just me 🙂, and I do get your point, even if we differ on it.

As for willpower, when you come right down to it, I think that's really all we have. Clearly, some have it and some don't, and there are tremendously varying levels of willpower, but I personally don't think there's anything stronger. I'm not really talking specific examples here, more just in general terms, but I think that if it's strong enough (I hope I'm not going too far off the path here), it has the ability to override other primal forces in our lives. Things like fear, greed, rage, even hope, are all only subject to willpower (gotta love when I can work in my Green Lantern references!).

But even though we're not on the same page on the whole free will thing, it's been fun talking about it, and you laid down one hell of a post!

 

[SinisterPledge]

[MENTION=11961]Frooley[/MENTION]: Yeah, it is getting pretty deep, but that's cool. I think that this whole discussion, at it's core, hinges on personal opinion, not fact. I suppose, putting my own views and thoughts aside, that my entire belief about free will and willpower in general could all just be part of some grand illusion to make me think like that. Sure, that possibility exists. But at the end of the day, that's something we all need to decide upon for ourselves, and for me, I just don't believe it. It's kind of simplistic, but I believe what I see in front of me. And right now, there's nothing stopping me or causing me to do or not do anything. But that's just me 🙂, and I do get your point, even if we differ on it.

As for willpower, when you come right down to it, I think that's really all we have. Clearly, some have it and some don't, and there are tremendously varying levels of willpower, but I personally don't think there's anything stronger. I'm not really talking specific examples here, more just in general terms, but I think that if it's strong enough (I hope I'm not going too far off the path here), it has the ability to override other primal forces in our lives. Things like fear, greed, rage, even hope, are all only subject to willpower (gotta love when I can work in my Green Lantern references!).

But even though we're not on the same page on the whole free will thing, it's been fun talking about it, and you laid down one hell of a post!

Haha yeah, Discussions are fun, so long as it doesn't turn into a flame battle 🙂 I get your point too, hell, I'm not sure I believe that we have no free-will, but it's an interesting theory and when you start thinking about it you get sorta frightened (and my head starts to hurt 🙁 ).

Gotta find a new subject to start discussing. Would be great if more people started these kind of threads. With the great BB-spirit I'm sure we can all get along and accept others' views 😀 This is a great place for these kind of threads, imo.

 

[Valjavertjinn]

I believe that we have free will to do whatever we'd like with what we're given at the beginning. I don't believe in fate or higher powers - I believe that we can control what we have.

 

[dexeded]

I believe that we have free will to do whatever we'd like with what we're given at the beginning. I don't believe in fate or higher powers - I believe that we can control what we have.

Ah, but this has nothing to do with a higher power or fate. It's more like everything from the beginning affects something else, spreading out and rippling so much that you can't control anything. Outside circumstances can't be controlled; your choices are dictated by your personality, which is dictated by your genes, which are dictated by your ancestors... that sort of thing.

---------- Post added at 05:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:10 PM ----------

No, I don't believe in free will. Mostly because none of us chose to be here at all. How can we have free will if we didn''t even choose to be here in the first place? I guess we have the free will to leave this world if we choose, but no one should feel forced to have to make that choice.

But it's more like being here is giving us free will (if you believe in free will). We couldn't have free will if we weren't born into this world, because we didn't exist before being born. So it's actually giving us the choices to make in this world.

 

[sisterofmercy]

I think we do but not completely. We're constrained by our socioeconomic upbringing and influenced biologically to be predisposed to certain attitudes. Religion and certain schools of education can also impinge on free will to a certain extent.

To make a choice based on a limited number of options isn't proper free will, but that is what I believe we're largely left with. I do think that we have the power to shape our life in certain ways though. I don't think there's any intrinsic essence to us at birth; we are able to change class, jobs, religion, etc. if we wish to. Nothing is set in stone completely, at least not for us in this part of the world.

In less developed parts of the world that are affected by war, conflict, famine, etc. then free will is even more limited as it's not like they can just choose not to live like that anymore. They may not all have the money to get on a plane and move somewhere else like we can.

To a certain extent I think money helps us with free will but in some ways can also constrain us more than liberate us. I'm aware this is a bit contradictory though. It's a big topic.1

 

[Faith717132]

Yep!

Yep! Free will I BELIEVE.

🙂🙂