Philosophy: Do you believe in free will?

[el_boss]

I got a sudden urge to write this when studying the subject in my philosophy class. Didn't know what to do with it so I decided to post it here. There are so many distorted ideas out there so I decided to come up with my own. It would be very interesting to hear your opinions on this subject. Do you believe in free will?


My insane ramblings regarding free will™ v.1.0

Free will is in short the feeling that you can do whatever the hell you want in any given situation, within your power of course. There has to excist options for one to be able to exercise free will. Then the question rises as to what counts as options. Obviously there are some situations where options may just be a mere possibility not a probability. For example if you are being mugged and your choices are to get killed or give up your money. I wouldn't call that a choice, unless you are suicidal that is. But what if we never truly have a choice? Free will might just be an illusion, an opiate for the masses so to speak. Much like some people believe in a god, it seems that there is no need for proof to believe in free will.

I have some theories as to why we have this feeling. The most obvious one being that there actually is a free will. As I said this is impossible to prove as is it's opposite, predestination or similar theories. Another is that it has been hardwired into our brains through evolution over time. People with this sense of free will might have had a bigger chance of survival, since they felt that their actions had meaning. Also people that believed they had free will probably genrally felt better. And lastly, it really really feels like we have a free will. I think that almost all people (before they study philosophy) intuitivley feel that they are the masters of their actions.

The arguments against free will most often attack the fact that the actions must have began somewhere. The notion that an action is the result of a previous action and so on until before a person is concieved. Since you have no control over what happens before you excist you have no control over what you do now, because all of it is linked together. Though I do understand how someone would be happy with this explanation, I can not really sympathize with it. If you let your belief get swayed this easily, you might as well believe in reincarnation. Then we would have control over events before our birth. I say that these factors that are out of our control, are a big part in the decision process but do not control it entirely.

There also a view that says that all our actions are undetermined. They are not connected to any outside factors what so ever. What we chose is just a mere coin toss. All choices are random and have a equal chance of happening, and we have no power over them. This is just silly, and I can't see at all how someone could believe in this. The randomness is not so far out, but that everything would have an equal chance in the decision process is just retarded.

Another idea is that everything happens regardless of what we do. This is in my opinion is just a triviality since obviously, everything that happens, happens. Can't argue against that.

Now on to some more of my own theories. The first theory I tought of when thinking about this subject was that we are partly controlled by our instincts. Think about how an animal lives. They eat when they're hungry, drink when thirsty and sleep when tired. So what I think is that the more a decision is connected to an instinct the less power we have over it. For example breathing is truly essential for our survival so we do not really chose to breath. But choices like whatching tv versus taking a walk are more in our power.

The other idea is that there is an random factor in our choices. But the ratios depend on our urges, personality and so on. For example I could walk over and stab my neighbour in the heart with a knife, but I don't. Because I am not inclined to kill anyone the chance of that happening is astronomically small. The chance of me sitting here and continuing my writing is far better. Unless I get an urge to do something else, like take a piss, which might override the will to sit still.

The last theory is that we actually do not control our actions. But we control what kind of person we are going to be. The mental image I get is that you are travelling on rail, there are an infinite amount of rails running along side it. And you can chose to switch rails and face the difficultys on that rail, but you can not chose how to handle them when you reach them. As you can see these three theories work together instad of against eachother.

In the end what it all comes down to is what you want to believe, what makes you feel best. And I chose to believe in free will.


Feedback would be much appreciated

[Deadfire]

To me Free will is a belief , a doctrine that says that I have the power over my actions. It’s been supported though Indeterminism, and however defied in determinism. However the facts remain about if those actions I take can be judged by my ethics or my own causality. (Meaning of course that there is objective and subjective connotations).

To look at it in a Philosophical way I have to decide whether people have the power to choose among alternatives before an action. Is events cause by what happened before? (Cause and effect). That leads down to the road of if I decide to accept that or view it that free will actions are an effect without a cause.

I believe in a middle ground that my Free Will is a product of my thoughts, beliefs, and desires. So accepting that my actions have a cause but the cause has been determined by for lack of a better word "upbringing". If my actions aren't determined by my beliefs, my desires, and my character, then it seems that they aren't really my actions, correct?

[XanBcoo]

I didn't understand a lot of that, Deadfire. Some of your grammar confused me. I do generally beleive in Free Will though. Unless our actions are attributed to the desires of some diety, not having Free Will just doesn't make any sense to me.

I believe in a middle ground that my Free Will is a product of my thoughts, beliefs, and desires. So accepting that my actions have a cause but the cause has been determined by for lack of a better word "upbringing". If my actions aren't determined by my beliefs, my desires, and my character, then it seems that they aren't really my actions, correct?

I beleive this to be true as well. It reminds me of an idea in Satrerean Existentialism, that our free will is a product of our being able to overcome our current situation, and that humans are basically defined by that freedom. Here's something from an essay I wrote last year (excuse some of the undefined terms, I'd rather not post the entire essay):

...We are responsible for the way we experience things because of how we interpret the being-in-itself of things in the world. Everything exists in-itself with a facticity, and we give it meaning through the result of our consciousness (which inherently means making distinctions), and thus, we shape the world. Because human facticity is based on our characteristics and therefore past decisions, the essence or being of a human is made up of the projects that a person chooses throughout his life—but we also have the ability to move past this current facticity. This is similar to the common concept of “free will”, by which humans have the power to choose.
[snip]
...any action means acting towards something that is not. It is through this nothingness that we create our being—and this is our freedom. Through the near limitless free choice of projects set out by our former actions, we are all able to transcend our current situations. Although Sartre’s view narrows down the world to only define a mere set of tasks, his work allowed for other existentialist thinkers, such as Merleau-Ponty, to elaborate and conclude that the world is not only tasks, but also exists as a “gift”, or “opportunity” to be taken advantage of by our freedom.

[darkmetal505]

We had this disscusion in my TOK class. I believe that one has control over his/her life, but in some circumstances, the inevitable is bound to happen. For instance, if your car launches of the road into a ditch, there is no way you can stop it. What I don't believe is that some has set your life in motion or is guiding it, because all consequences stem from your actions, either directly or indirectly. I would also like to say that religion plays a big deal in this topic for a large number of people.

[Honoko]

Ack, too many words to deal with at sleep-deprived capacity. I will read all that by my next post in here, I promise.

My take: yes I do believe in free will. I believe that every individual is responsible for his/her own actions and must accept the consequences of those actions, or at the very least, be accountable for them.

[Tekkaman Vigorot]

I believe free will certainly exists. You see what I'm doing now? You see what you are doing? You surely aren't asking because it can feed you or pay your rent, you do it because you want to, not because you have to. The power to ask why, that is free will, and it's something that is very real.

[complich8]

There are two components to "free will" -- "free" and "will". The extent to which you believe in either determines how sensible it is to put them together.

There's two schools of thought on freedom: determinists and nondeterminists. Determinists believe that, for any given state of the universe at any moment in time, if you have a complete picture of it (all the particles, all the states, all the vectors) you can compute the next moment in time based on all of that. In a deterministic universe, freedom is an illusion, because everything will happen exactly as it will happen. You may think you have it, but that's just the particles in the universe colliding in ways that make you think you have freedom. Ultimately, pure determinists don't believe in freedom.

Nondeterminists, on the other hand, don't believe in the systematicity of the universe. Rather than a logical progression from state to state to state in a predictable way, nondeterminists believe in what amounts to a random progression of states. In such an environment, you could have freedom, but there's a problem with free will in that -- you can't really have will.

So what about will? What is it? Why is it important? Will is a conscious mental act to produce physical results (thanks wikipedia!). If you have a nondeterministic universe, then freedom is meaningful, but will isn't, because there's no sensible deterministic causality. That is, you can't reliably produce physical results from mental action, because the rules may randomly change on you from moment to moment.

Now, if you're a nondeterminist, you've got other problems to address, like ... why does the universe seem deterministic? What's up with all this consistency? Theistic nondeterminists (like Berkeley) would say that God's benevolence is what keeps the game consistent -- he'd rather play by the same rules and project the illusion of deterministic reality than to constantly change them and render us confused and helpless.

Personally, I subscribe to what I'd call probabilistic nondeterminism. I think that the universe mostly makes sense, but unpredictable results can still happen. This sort of bridges the gap between the non-freedom in determinism and the shaky ground that Will is on in nondeterminism.

To me, the universe is a set of choices. At any given moment, there's a probability that I'll take a particular action. Will I get up and change my laundry now? Or will I wait 10 minutes? Will I take a book of matches with me and set my laundry on fire? I certainly could, I have the freedom to do so, and I do like fire, so there's some inclination. But the probability of me torching my clothes after I just washed them is infinitesimal.

Within the scope of things I'm capable of doing, there are thus things I'm more or less likely to do. Socialization tweaks those curves, making it more likely that I'll do the things I'm socialized to do and less likely to do things outside of those social norms. But even there, there's room for me to deviate, to randomly select option X instead of "nomal" option Y. Which could explain why I'm doing laundry and cleaning my apartment at 1:40 in the morning, instead of out enjoying the second-to-last night of night life in the semester.

[lonewolf]

To El Boss

Paragraph 1:
1) Freewill = choice.
2) God = a choice. Some people live an entirely agnostic or even atheistic life. Jesus gave the thief and the killer each a choice of living as agnostic life as each have already seen his miracle and even so one of them was stubborn atheistic in the end.
3) Ask this: By not choosing to have freewill does it mean i don't have a choice?
If f= freewill and g=no freewill and you're drowning in a swimming pool because you can't swim does it discredit free will? You should take swimming lessons.
This is when you're drowning. f=0, g=1
This is when you're drowning and paddle even without swimming experience, f=1 g=0

Paragraph 2

I have some theories as to why we have this feeling. The most obvious one being that there actually is a free will. As I said this is impossible to prove as is it's opposite, predestination or similar theories.
---------->
It's possible to prove. If f=freewill and e=feeling and by definition freewill=feeling then we can't discuss free will unless we distinguish between the two. Feeling= do whatever you want. Right? No?

Paragraph 3
You're right about your existence being not entirely the outcome of your life. Can't argue with that. There are exceptions. Can you think of some? How about these:
-The rich gets richer. (your wealth)
-Like father(mother) like son(daughter) (your genes)
These are things you are born into or happen to you and does affect your life in the future at least for the short-term, childhood to adulthood and independence.

Paragraph 4
I agree. This only happens in an inorganic sense. A cloud will dissolve when it has loss pressure and momentum, why? However, a fish on the other hand, knows how to make a choice and although it seems stupid and simple it is not just randomly flipping coins to know where it wants to go for food. Its behavior is to live even if its won't last against other more intelligent predators but at the same time fighting off death for as long as possible. Anything while alive is capable of freewill. If you don't have freewill you're not alive at least in your head. The sooner you get back to reality the sooner you'll feel better.

Last paragraphs:
These are just restating what you've already established as freewill. I'll summarize them.

Freewill -feeling of doing whatever the heck you want to do
Theory 1- freewill is instinctive and by choice. "You just know." You just want to breath and want to watch TV. Choice being the keyword here. A-Z always results or most always.

Theory 2- freewill is again not random but has ratio and probability. This probability depends on your mood and you're capable of asserting. Probability being the key rather than choice. Probability > choice. A-Z is more likely to result because of personality, choice, location where you are, etc.

Theory 3- You do not believe in Theory 1 & theory 2. A third theory is needed to state that free will is but an illusion, a "comfort" device. Freewill can be a choice but the reward may not be what you chose and probability by choosing does not increase or decrease.
Despite thinking that you chose destination you can't predict the outcome.
Chose Railway destination A->B->D->Z but end up with A->D->B->Unknown

If i have to choose which of these theory to agree i'd choose all of them.

Freewill- feeling of doing whatever you want to do, and instinctively will more likely result positive if there is the right personality, location, birth right, privilege, wealth, power, money, fortune, luck, and last but not least by having the illusion that one is in control.

MLK
I have a dream...and it happened.

Dreams don't always come true but it can cause of his charisma, determination, being born after Civil War he inherited the Civil Rights, and he does not fear death. By his freewill alone he would not have accomplished, and even though he had the personality and born at the right time, he chose to lead the nation peaceful but didn't see how it may end his life.

---------->
_______________
In the end what it all comes down to is what you want to believe, what makes you feel best. And I chose to believe in free will.

[Yukimura]

I believe in wholly in determinism (thanks for reminding me of the term Complish) while I have ideas and thoughts and feelings and such, I don't think that they are anything more than very complicated feedback loops in my brain. I believe that my choices represent preferances I had at the time of making my decesion, but that I would always make the same decision in exactly the same situation.

To me everything can be boiled down to a state machine, which is an abstract idea of a system that has some amount of states and a table of all the possible transitions from a given state for any combination of inputs. Thinking things, meaning things with brains, satisfy the conditions needed to be classified as state machines, we take in input constantly and are always shifting from state to state. My favorite example of this is good old PMS. Give the same inputs to a girl who's hormones are raging and to an identical girl who is more chemically balanced and you'll probobly get very different results. Obviously this doesn't prove anything, it just allows the possibility. The girls who are reacting to the stimulii we gave them go through a process where they think that they evaluate they're inputs and take some action. In reality (I believe) the process that creates the illusion of will is just a part of the state change.

I often wonder why the thought process itself is needed however, which causes me to doubt myself. My beliefs are so prone to doubt that I generally don't think about them, I merely act on what is happening around me. Fortunately for my sanity, no belief system can truly be proven, since everything fails the Cartesian test for reality. The only thing I can prove is that I exist. DesCartes took the easy (and non-burn-at-the-stakeable way out, using God to get him out of the void).

Nowadays we say, look at what I did, I choose to do that because I have free will, whether you do or not is indeterminable and thus it's a waste of time worrying about it. However, something being meaningless in an absolute sense is no reason not to give it personal meaning and thus philosophy exists.

@complich: Your probabalistic indeterminism seems to look identical to my determinism if viewed from the same point of referance. I look at the world from outside of it, and outside of time, and thus I see what happened, what was done and I conclude that what happened happend the only way it could happen until time stopped, and then there was nothing. You seem to look forward from a specific point in time, within the universe, carrying the past with you (socialization) and attach a probability to what you are most likely to do, given who you are as a person. The only difference is that you don't seem to believe that a full and complete definition of you exists (it is you) and that there is only one event with a non-zero probability that you can do at a given time, and it is that you will do what you would do in the situation you were in, and in the future, you will be doing whatever the combination of how you are at the time and the inputs you are recieving tell you to do.

This is my long sleep deprived theory. Next time we shall see how different inputs cause radical behavior in state machine people.

[Honoko]

Much like some people believe in a god, it seems that there is no need for proof to believe in free will.

Just to casually interject-- for me, because I believe in God, I also believe in free will. If there wasn't a god, or if I happen to not believe in one, then I really do think I'd believe in fate or destiny or whatever else. Of course, this isn't exactly proof but with these sort of things, it's usually the individual himself who decides on what to believe in. And ironically, isn't the act of making that very decision an exercise of free will? Haha, fry your brain over that one!

The other casual interjection-- after reading Xan and Complich's posts this question came to mind: Do determinists believe that the future is knowable then?

[Yukimura]

From what I understad determinists believe that the future is knowable if you could take into account everything that's happening in the whole universe as well as everything that had already occured. Unfortunately the only thing that could possess such capability would be labeled as God and probobly would be unatainable by humans.

[samsonlonghair]

There are two problems with Determinism at the quantum level. Yukimura just described the first one; It's called the "Observer Effect" in quantum physics. The second problem is even bigger.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle tells us that one can not predict the future movement of atomic or subatomic particles. Here's a simplified way of looking at it:

1. If you know where particles are and in what direction they are moving, you can't predict the speed.
2. If you know where particles are and at what speed they are moving, you can't predict the direction.
3. If you know at what speed particles are moving and in what direction they are moving, you can't know the location.

To quote, ""The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known"

Of course, Werner Heisenberg was a terrible man, but that's another conversation.

[el_boss]

Good stuff guys. It's going to take me some time to process this. I can throw in some small bits though.

I'm just going try and clear up some concepts.
Some forms of determinism are compatible with free will. They are called soft determinism or compatiblism.

Indeterminism or nondeterminism is not a teching of free will. It's the idea that everything is random and based on what samson explained.

@Honoko: I can't really see why or what your interjecting against. Are you saying that "god" gave us free will?

[complich8]

I'm just going try and clear up some concepts.
Some forms of determinism are compatible with free will. They are called soft determinism or compatiblism.

Indeterminism or nondeterminism is not a teching of free will. It's the idea that everything is random and based on what samson explained.

Right right, but compatibilism ultimately boils down to justifications of free will based on the perception of free will.

Basically, if you're going to define the whole universe as an objective entity, then your definitions of objective traits shouldn't be dependent on subjective perceptions. That's the big problem I have with compatibilism ... it just sort of opens a loophole, and says "well, the universe is deterministic, but I've still got free will, because I feel like I've got free will". Bullshit, I say... if nothing else in the universe is defined as subjective, then why should free will be?

To me everything can be boiled down to a state machine, which is an abstract idea of a system that has some amount of states and a table of all the possible transitions from a given state for any combination of inputs. Thinking things, meaning things with brains, satisfy the conditions needed to be classified as state machines, we take in input constantly and are always shifting from state to state.

As far as the mind as a state machine, sure, it could qualify as one. But the question is, could it meaningfully be considered one?

The problem with modeling the mind after a finite automaton is that the input set is infinite, the output set is nearly infinite, and because we have complex, constructive memory, no state can ever be repeated.

Thinking of the mind as a computer, or as a state machine, or as anything that's generally deterministic just doesn't work. The same stimulus might or might not produce the same response on any given attempt, and whether it will or won't is unpredictable.

[lonewolf]

---------->>

1. If you know where particles are and in what direction they are moving, you can't predict the speed.
2. If you know where particles are and at what speed they are moving, you can't predict the direction.
3. If you know at what speed particles are moving and in what direction they are moving, you can't know the location.

To quote, ""The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known"

______
Indeterminism or nondeterminism is not a teching of free will. It's the idea that everything is random and based on what samson explained.
______

This is incorrect interpretation.
Rule 1 of uncertainty states that you can determine location and direction but not speed. It is not randomness. This is your theory #3. This goes against determinism (theory #1) and random (theory #3) but not against free will (theory #2).

By knowing at least one variable of direction, speed, or position you are exercising free will.


http://atheism.about.com/library/glo...inty+principle

On uncertainty principle.

[Honoko]

@Honoko: I can't really see why or what your interjecting against. Are you saying that "god" gave us free will?

I wasn't for or against any of your arguments. Merely making a statement of my point of view. And yes, I do believe that God gave us free will.

And just to be clear, it's definitely not my intention to use this thread as a platform to evangelize =P You asked a philosophical question on free will and I'm just contributing according to how I think about it. That being said, any further discussion revolving around God and free will would be just my take on what I think it is. If you disagree, that's fine.

Anyways, for or what it is, I'm enjoying this thread so far ^^v

[huhuromo]

We live in a deterministic universe. Things happen for a reason and not randomly. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle just means that we cannot prove it on a quantum level.

If you subscribe to the dusty notion that there exists an omnipotent God who created man, how can you possibly believe in free will? God can't give a human free will just as a human cannot program a computer with free will because all decisions are simplified into "If A then B". If given choice A you will chose possibility B.

Say you are given a choice between vanilla and chocolate ice cream. You think, "Well I have the free will to choose what ice cream I want." So you chose vanilla because it tastes better. But you never choose to like vanilla over chocolate, you just do. If you hate the taste of broccoli, you can't miraculously will yourself to like it. You can't choose your own preferences. People don't choose to be gay or straight they either are or aren't.

There is no free will, only hormones (And I do not specifically mean sex hormones) and ingrained conditioned responses.

[el_boss]

And just to be clear, it's definitely not my intention to use this thread as a platform to evangelize =P You asked a philosophical question on free will and I'm just contributing according to how I think about it. That being said, any further discussion revolving around God and free will would be just my take on what I think it is. If you disagree, that's fine.

I just wanted to be sure on where your standing. You are more than welcome to talk about the religious aspect of this. I have no intention to argue against your beliefs but I might say why I don't believe in them.

I don't believe in a god because I feel that it's just an excuse to bring attention away from humans. When something good happens it's like, "oh praise the lord" when something bad happens it's "god works in mysterious ways" or "it was gods will". It's just a way for people not to take responsibility for what happens. I'm often thinking, "when is this religioun business going to fade away". I know it's a little weird, but religion feels like such an ancient idea.

The reason I'm saying this is that this sort of thinking comes up alot within philosophy. People come up with advanced moral and ethical systems instead of just taking responsibility.

[Yukimura]

@ Hisenburg: I totally forgot about that, with that then I guess I don't think anyone could know what's going to happen because they can't obtain a full picture of the state of the universe. However, I still thik the Universe is deterministic, Hisenburg just guarentees that a perfect illusion of free will exists because it can neither be proven or disproven. Thus all you can do is believe in it's existance or not.

But you do have to give God credit for ALWAYS getting involved in philisophical debates.

What's the belief that there is a God but that said God doesn't matter to you at all, I have that one. It stems from the fact that I can only justify my belief in God through the fear and ritualism instilled into me by being dragged to church every week as a child. I'm so far gone that I can't dismiss the possibility and thus I believe in God. However I don't really have much faith, which is what I tried to tell my parents when I realized what forced belief does to an idea.

Anyway, God said X, is just as valid of an armchair philosophy as most other ideas on free will, however some armchair philosophies do have so actual relevace to the observable universe, and I tihnk that's why the God solution is falling out of favor in the world/America (Damned international students shattering my misconceptions)

[Terracosmo]

What's the belief that there is a God but that said God doesn't matter to you at all, I have that one. It stems from the fact that I can only justify my belief in God through the fear and ritualism instilled into me by being dragged to church every week as a child. I'm so far gone that I can't dismiss the possibility and thus I believe in God. However I don't really have much faith, which is what I tried to tell my parents when I realized what forced belief does to an idea.

I can SO relate to this!
I'm not religious at all, I never pray, in fact I often claim that God doesn't exist. Nontheless there is a part of me which doesn't "dare" to go against "God's will" too much. An example of this would be that I could never write heretic lyrics, something that I have been asked to do since I'm part of a black metal band. There is just a part of me which refuses, even though I don't necessarily believe in the first place!

It's weird, really.