50 replies to this topic

[abolitionist]

Does anyone have any evidence that would support the theory of free-will?

How about a good reason to believe that we have free-will?

[Ben Simon]

Does anyone have any evidence that would support the theory of free-will?

How about a good reason to believe that we have free-will?

While I certainly wouldn't say that I have evidence as such, I tend to think of both sides of this debate as being correct in their own way.

The analogy I sometimes use is that of thinking about the physical properties of a story book, and the relationship those properties have with the story itself. A book is comprised of pages and ink... that's all. But when you observe those pages in the proper sequence, utilising the machinery of the brain to convert ink blots into letters, letters into words, words into sentences and so on, 'paper and ink' suddenly becomes more than the sum of it's parts. The last page has been written before the first has been read, and the reader has no control over what will happen next, and yet the story itself is no less dynamic for any of this. It is the physical and immutable that allows the intangible to come into being.

Similarly with the human mind and it's ability to make choices, it may be true that all future events are mathematically assured including our own thoughts. But I'm not so sure in the end that this deprives us of our decisions. We still make them... they still occur... they just occur necessarily. Dispassionate, physical certainty ultimately facilitates an intangible and dynamic wonder, a story of a sort, no less meaningful for the fact that it has in a sense already been written. Rather, even as it is cold and distant, it is also miraculous - indifferent matter has been brought to colorful life. Math and star debris have somehow become sufficiently organised to be able to think, and reflect on their own thinking. ...Pretty amazing.

[abolitionist]

Free-will is the real time experience of memory formation.

There is no decision making by anyone - it's just that we remember experience that way - as a learning event is being created that will change future behavior.

Edited by abolitionist, 09 May 2008 - 11:01 AM.

[abolitionist]

When we are dreaming we believe we have free-will - being 'awake' is the same
It's still a simulation of reality and symbolic representation of self related to objects or objectives.

The mind creates these symbolic representations of self and objects in order to encode a learning experience to memory.


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What is happening during REM sleep when we dream about our selves and free-will?

memories are being encoded

Edited by abolitionist, 09 May 2008 - 11:08 AM.

[abolitionist]

1. We want to see ourselves as in charge of our experience

2. We want to hold people accountable

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Not believing in free-will doesn't require that we ignore these points and sit around feeling sorry for our inability to do anything

Just that we focus on the systems that underlie our experience - and stop expecting individual will power to exist freely of genes/environment.

[VictorBjoerk]

does any people here NOT believe in free will?

[Brainbox]

It's my free will to believe in free will. :D

[JonesGuy]

I believe that most people don't understand the question well enough to ask "do we actually have free will?". I'll grant that it certainly feels like we have free will, but our senses are very often not accurate representations of reality. I don't think that our cognition has enough processing power to determine whether it has free will (since it would need to be powerful enough to examine itself), and so the question can only be approached in bite-sized chunks.

I feel like I have free will, but I suspect that most of that feeling is just me lying to myself.

[forever freedom]

I think that most people don't have free will. Too much culture's, societie's, and religion's trash polluting most people's mind to for them to have any real free will. That's unfortunate but true.


In my opinion, a person only has free will when he can think for himself, without any hazing influence in his thinking from the environment where he lives in.

Edited by sam988, 09 May 2008 - 06:41 PM.

[JonesGuy]

I think your conception of free will is different from what the OP intended.

[Ben Simon]

I think your conception of free will is different from what the OP intended.

Right. We're not talking about cultural influences really I don't think, are we? I was coming at the question as it relates to the mind body problem, and by extension the body universe problem. If I went way off target - oops.

I suppose all such arguments however are kind of an extrapolation of Sam's, just taken to their logical conclusion.

Edited by ben, 09 May 2008 - 08:34 PM.

[Brainbox]

Suppose free will exists (which I'm not sure of), then how would we be able to proof it's existence?

I assume that free will would be measurable as a certain level of randomness observed in the outcome of a test in which individuals are faced with a non-life threatening situation and subsequently need to make choices to deal with it. If free will exists, they will not make equal choices, hence the randomness. But in practice they will make similar choices, based on genetic properties and societal / cultural circumstances. I guess.

So, what would that proof about the existence of free will for individual minds? Nothing I assume.

How do we account for the part in our behaviour that is based on free will and the part that limits it due to nature and nurture? I mean, individual free will would manifest itself outside nurture and nature but at the same time be killed (or severly limited) by it.

My opinion is that free will is something that's beyond our human perception, if it exists. But please proof me wrong by a method that could mesure it....

On the other hand, I think there must be a major flaw in my reasoning.

Edited by brainbox, 09 May 2008 - 10:34 PM.

[Ben Simon]

The only proof I can think of would be to mathematically calculate the future, then somehow contradict the result of that calculation with our own actions.

First we'll need to account for every piece of matter in the universe, then we'll nead to measure all of them and their relationships to each other (either now or at some other time... the big bang could be a good choice). After that it will be as easy as extrapolating on the information we've collected... probably with the use of some far distant super computer.

I love this plan. I'm excited to be part of it

Edited by ben, 09 May 2008 - 11:19 PM.

[VictorBjoerk]

Your emotions maybe shouldn't be considered free will.Can you really convince your free will to think that a person you've first thought appeared ugly suddenly look good.Your moral maybe shouldn't be considered free will since it is partly controlled by genetics.

[abolitionist]

It's my free will to believe in free will. :D

thanks - now, I'm going to start investing in drugs to treat obesity...

[abolitionist]

Suppose free will exists (which I'm not sure of), then how would we be able to proof it's existence?

I assume that free will would be measurable as a certain level of randomness observed in the outcome of a test in which individuals are faced with a non-life threatening situation and subsequently need to make choices to deal with it. If free will exists, they will not make equal choices, hence the randomness. But in practice they will make similar choices, based on genetic properties and societal / cultural circumstances. I guess.

So, what would that proof about the existence of free will for individual minds? Nothing I assume.

How do we account for the part in our behaviour that is based on free will and the part that limits it due to nature and nurture? I mean, individual free will would manifest itself outside nurture and nature but at the same time be killed (or severly limited) by it.

My opinion is that free will is something that's beyond our human perception, if it exists. But please proof me wrong by a method that could mesure it....

On the other hand, I think there must be a major flaw in my reasoning.

free-will would be identified by an intelligence that functions independently of environmental factors

but then this intelligence would have been created through other processes

you can't prove observed will power is free because nothing exists freely or independently

Edited by abolitionist, 10 May 2008 - 02:31 AM.

[abolitionist]

Your emotions maybe shouldn't be considered free will.Can you really convince your free will to think that a person you've first thought appeared ugly suddenly look good.Your moral maybe shouldn't be considered free will since it is partly controlled by genetics.

To be free, we'd have to choose everything

all the thoughts and feelings and unconscious actions, not to mention the global variables that makes us who we are

(if we had free will we'd be despots of the universe)

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so what is it that we think is free? it isn't consciousness, feelings, thoughts, decisions, or memories

Edited by abolitionist, 10 May 2008 - 02:35 AM.

[abolitionist]

Why do we experience free-will?

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The distinction of self and other is how the brain encodes learning experiences (through objectification of reality using symbolism)

It is a downstream rationalization from the processes which create our experience.

We also use it to rationalize our Darwinian behaviors (you had a choice therefore we can justify ignoring your happiness or I'm justifiably dominant because of my choices)

[Brainbox]

Why do we experience free-will?

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The distinction of self and other is how the brain encodes learning experiences (through objectification of reality using symbolism)

It is a downstream rationalization from the processes which create our experience.

We also use it to rationalize our Darwinian behaviors (you had a choice therefore we can justify ignoring your happiness or I'm justifiably dominant because of my choices)

Yes, that's true of-coarse, we do experience free will.

Then, the next question is: Why do we doubt this experience all the time?

Being able to rationalize our Darwinian behaviour requires a level of consciousness and intelligence that would also allow the existence of real free will? Or at least increases the probability that the experience of free will is real?

Ha, and then the next question would be: can we objectively distinct objectivity from subjectivity?

And now I just experienced the urge to eat some breakfast and go outside to enjoy the nice weather...

But I'm not able to leave this subject alone.

There seems to a paradox: Intelligence would increase the probability for free will to exist, but it also increases the doubt.

My Darwinian me would at this time already be eating a nice breakfast, but I'm still attracted to this issue so much to ignore my urge to eat breakfast. This must be free will (or some form of addiction)!

Edited by brainbox, 10 May 2008 - 07:36 AM.

[Brainbox]

It's my free will to believe in free will. :D

thanks - now, I'm going to start investing in drugs to treat obesity...

Ha, that's a good one.

It's our free will to manipulate others that do not decide to use their free will according to our standards of ethical free will usage. It's our free will to impose culture on others that limits their free will. It's good to develop some doubt if it's going in that direction....

[Luna]

As Einstein said it, the actions are free, the will is based on stuff. and the actions are based on will, mostly.

[abolitionist]

I'll believe that you have free-will when you can demonstrate the ability to think and feel and do exactly what you want.

but then again, what causes you to want to do, think, feel, etc...?

it is your free-will creating the world?

[abolitionist]

I believe the earth is flat 8-P

[VictorBjoerk]

What are the opinions of the current greatest philosophers regarding free will?

[abolitionist]

What are the opinions of the current greatest philosophers regarding free will?

Daniel Dennet says it's still a useful distinction to attribute willfulness to humans - and I would agree.

The reason I promote the understanding of the absense of free-will is to inspire people to focus on genetics and systemic problems.

Not to feel helpless and let criminals be unaccountable. I think people should exercise whatever will they subjectively believe they have.

[Brainbox]

I think people should exercise whatever will they subjectively believe they have.

Probably that's the best statement to summarize our possibilities to judge or describe free will, although it seems a bit new-age-ish.

My assumption that free will should be something that is not in any way predetermined, hence some form of mechanism that must reside outside human nature and nurture, remains to be looked at with caution and scepticism. Aren't nature and nurture forming the entire and complete concepts within which our human behaviour exists. Or could there be more outside nature and nurture that defines our existence?

What do you think?

[abolitionist]

I think people should exercise whatever will they subjectively believe they have.

Probably that's the best statement to summarize our possibilities to judge or describe free will, although it seems a bit new-age-ish.

My assumption that free will should be something that is not in any way predetermined, hence some form of mechanism that must reside outside human nature and nurture, remains to be looked at with caution and scepticism. Aren't nature and nurture forming the entire and complete concepts within which our human behaviour exists. Or could there be more outside nature and nurture that defines our existence?

What do you think?

Rings true to my ears

It's funny - we have no free-will to not believe in free-will. Not the intellectual conviction but the subjective experience.

and how easy we forget;



* yes heil hitler, kill the jews... no wait, i have free-will... ah who cares I better play the game if I want to survive and be dominant some day*

Edited by abolitionist, 10 May 2008 - 08:52 PM.

[abolitionist]

Now that I think about it more, maybe taking psychedelics could be considered a volitional way to experience a lack of subjective free-will

[Heliotrope]

I choose to use my Free Will and choose not to reply this thread/topic or advance any biblical-God-given-free-will theory any further!

[Heliotrope]

don't know what happened, looks like fate/destiny/group-think made me reply to the thread a minute ago, and Now i'm doing it again!!

do i have a free will or not??!