I know this is the oldest discussion ever but do you believe in free will?

I personally don't, provided you define free will as something outside of determinism. In other words, you are 'free' to make the choices that have been predetermined by the initial states of the universe, but are unable to deviate from that.

It's a very interesting concept, if everything we do has been predetermined from before we were born, and we are in essence just reacting to everything that happens to us, the concept of responsibility becomes somewhat meaningless, no?

Yes, i believe we do have a free will, in that i do believe in God.

btw this question isn't really applicable to agnostics or atheists alike.
so it belongs in 'My God can beat the shit out of your God'

i think it belongs here, i have no wish for any religious people to comment on it because I could care less for their point of view

so i take it your an atheist?

i'd say that if your an atheist,

life just randomly happened.
the universe is just an accidental colorficaiton of atoms.

so essentially, the universe is an accident.
your birth is an accident,
your death is an accident,
and everything else in between is just another accident.

so really, you can't believe in pre-determination anyhow.

Yes, i believe we do have a free will, in that i do believe in God.

btw this question isn't really applicable to agnostics or atheists alike.
so it belongs in 'My God can beat the shit out of your God'

The two ideas are exclusive. You can believe in god and believe in free will or not believe in free will and the same goes for agnostics or atheists. It definitely belongs here, as it has little to do with theism.

so i take it your an atheist?

i'd say that if your an atheist,

life just randomly happened.
the universe is just an accidental colorficaiton of atoms.

so essentially, the universe is an accident.
your birth is an accident,
your death is an accident,
and everything else in between is just another accident.

so really, you can't believe in pre-determination anyhow.

Why not? He was determined to end up with the belief of determinism. Determinism does not make us unable to think, rationalize, or make thoughts, in fact, it is BECAUSE of determinism that we are able to do such things. Non-determinism is chaos. It seems the only way around determinism, while keeping rationality intact, is to invoke the supernatural via dualism, which is easily disposable upon any scientific scrutiny.

Personally, I don't think we have real/absolute free will, just free will the same as a dog, cat, ant, flower, etc have, that is we can "do what we want," which isn't saying much since our notion of 'what we want' is determined and transmitted as a thought after it has been created subconsciously. Thank god for our lack of free will.

No, I don't believe in free will. I believe that we can make choices, and it seems like free will, but in reality, all it is is complex brain functions, chemical reactions, electric sparks, etc. which we have no control over. These brain functions happen as a result of the environment and how we see and interpret the environment. It seems like free will, but everything's based on equations.

From there, it gets into the Chaos theory a bit, but all in all, the universe runs on equations, and it's nothing but order masquerading as disorder. Humans and their brains are no exception.

No, I don't believe in free will. I believe that we can make choices, and it seems like free will, but in reality, all it is is complex brain functions, chemical reactions, electric sparks, etc. which we have no control over. These brain functions happen as a result of the environment and how we see and interpret the environment. It seems like free will, but everything's based on equations.

From there, it gets into the Chaos theory a bit, but all in all, the universe runs on equations, and it's nothing but order masquerading as disorder. Humans and their brains are no exception.

"brain functions are result of the envirorment and how we interpret it" so people never change and if they do they're not aware of it or this thing called "self reflection." Lol u fail

of course free will exists if you aren't a bitch or a pawn lost in a maze.

my screw ups are my screw ups. It might seem like someone elses fault but it really isn't. Its like people who're like ZOMG I CANT STOP DOING DRUGS IM POWERLESS. That just means you're weak and more easily lead around.

Can you define Will?

"brain functions are result of the envirorment and how we interpret it" so people never change and if they do they're not aware of it or this thing called "self reflection." Lol u fail

of course free will exists if you aren't a bitch or a pawn lost in a maze.

my screw ups are my screw ups. It might seem like someone elses fault but it really isn't. Its like people who're like ZOMG I CANT STOP DOING DRUGS IM POWERLESS. That just means you're weak and more easily lead around.

^totally missed the point

i'm unsure whether we have free will or not. the implications that we can do acts that are only based on US is pretty hard to imagine though. this is why i cannot accept determinism, since it implies that at some point, a free willed choice was made and that it was the starting point for all the determinism - or that something happened at the "beginning" and this chain of events has shaped me writing this post.

randomness, which is the only alternative left, seems the only likely choice. but in saying so, this means that you are never 100% certain of anything, and you have to accept that "impossibility" isn't possible. things can always happen - the fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't evidence that it cannot happen. while we can generally state that a good percentage of the time we can predict what will happen - and very accurately - there is still that chance that something entirely different will occur. maybe this occurrence won't happen in our lifetimes, but it still could occur.

^totally missed the point

He's an idiot and he doesn't know jack shit.

I know this is the oldest discussion ever but do you believe in free will?

I personally don't, provided you define free will as something outside of determinism. In other words, you are 'free' to make the choices that have been predetermined by the initial states of the universe, but are unable to deviate from that.

It's a very interesting concept, if everything we do has been predetermined from before we were born, and we are in essence just reacting to everything that happens to us, the concept of responsibility becomes somewhat meaningless, no?

Oh yeah, I forgot to respond to the question of responsibility. While responsibility may lose it's non-consequentialist meaning, it still retains it's consequentialist pragmatism. That is, though we may not be able to say there is really any "I" inside of a body that freely acts, we can still attach responsibility to the system as a whole (the construction of 'person') for deterrent reasons. It is just like a punishing a robot, even if it doesn't have what we consider free will, it is still doing something that we deem wrong or bad for society, so we take a stance against its behaviors and attach responsibility to that system to deter it from happening again. Another example would be blaming/placing responsibility on an abstract system or ideology, such as when people blame capitalism or communism for this or that.

I think the whole question sits upon whether one believes they are a separate entity from the rest of the universe. Collective will I think could be considered free, as it drives all things possible. In short, we are a partition of free will, but we'd have to be completely separate from the universe to have free will. If that were the case, we'd be God, and it would be our partitions contemplating us, lol.

i semi-believe in free will, i also think there are other factors that shape who we are and control us unconsciously and we have no control over it

ex: the id

basic human necessities will be an overwhelming force in the unconscious brain and make us do things that we dont normally do. u can say, "well i still decided to do kill a person for survival" u would be wrong. logically the brain says run or try to talk your way out of it or whatever the civilized way is, for example. but the id takes over and makes u get rid of the threat. this is all hypothetical of course and i hope i made myself clear enough, sorry if i didnt :(

The stimuli:
Beginning state: Either side of
Initial cause: Perpetually chasing
Greater entropy: Perpetual retreat from
The unlikely: instant of pure order

Either side of the instant of pure order will create the illusion of progressing forward through time, continuing towards greater entropy and chaos: Abyss

Is time linear?
bleak future

What is Now and how much of choice is in this moment?

Is there an invisible arena of absolute space and time or is there only now?

If you can answer these, so too the O?.


Beginning of: New stratum
Of which: New world emerges
Reaching out: Interesting thought
The Unknown: Grasping substance
Fingers: through which substance slips
But that little bit: between the other bits
Brought back: Communicated: Sold
Targets: Drawn
This unknowingness: A fog
Engulfing: tiny beacons of light
Fog: Nature
Light: Humanity
Over the edge: gazing
INTO THE DEPTHS OF INFINITUS
Child: Do not fear
Follow: the whisper in your ear
Inspiration: guides you
The spark: has set fire
The winds: Continue to blow
a new era dawns. . .

Why not? He was determined to end up with the belief of determinism. Determinism does not make us unable to think, rationalize, or make thoughts, in fact, it is BECAUSE of determinism that we are able to do such things. Non-determinism is chaos. It seems the only way around determinism, while keeping rationality intact, is to invoke the supernatural via dualism, which is easily disposable upon any scientific scrutiny.

Personally, I don't think we have real/absolute free will, just free will the same as a dog, cat, ant, flower, etc have, that is we can "do what we want," which isn't saying much since our notion of 'what we want' is determined and transmitted as a thought after it has been created subconsciously. Thank god for our lack of free will.

This is basically my stance except for one thing: what the hell is 'real/absolute free will'? This is more directed at anyone who thinks determinism has anything to do with free will. In what way is free will more than just being able to do what we decide/want? How exactly is nondeterministic free will defined? What exactly IS nondeterminism in this sense?

Until these questions are answered I'm going to continue to assume that everyone who thinks free will has any relation at all to determinism is talking out of their collective asses. I have never seen anything that would even begin to convince me otherwise; none of you have any idea what you're talking about.

This is basically my stance except for one thing: what the hell is 'real/absolute free will'? This is more directed at anyone who thinks determinism has anything to do with free will. In what way is free will more than just being able to do what we decide/want? How exactly is nondeterministic free will defined? What exactly IS nondeterminism in this sense?

Until these questions are answered I'm going to continue to assume that everyone who thinks free will has any relation at all to determinism is talking out of their collective asses. I have never seen anything that would even begin to convince me otherwise; none of you have any idea what you're talking about.

I say "absolute free will" to mean there is an actual "I" that has control over it's processing powers (the brain). What I mean is that, sure, we have what I call social free will, in that there is no other person forcing us or keeping us from doing anything. What many people seem to think is that we have "free will" moreso than a robot would have or a dog has, and this I disagree with.

No, I don't believe in free will. I believe that we can make choices, and it seems like free will, but in reality, all it is is complex brain functions, chemical reactions, electric sparks, etc. which we have no control over. These brain functions happen as a result of the environment and how we see and interpret the environment. It seems like free will, but everything's based on equations.

From there, it gets into the Chaos theory a bit, but all in all, the universe runs on equations, and it's nothing but order masquerading as disorder. Humans and their brains are no exception.

this.

Nope, for the same reasons as the enkrpytor.

Absolutely not, I believe that the idea that we have control over ourselves is complete bullshit, even on two possible levels.
The first level is on the mental plane, I believe that our subconscious governs all our actions and some of them (only a small percentage) get filtered into being the illusion of a conscious decision OR our subconscious hands our consciousness all the pieces of a puzzle and upon our consciousness putting them together it feels that it created the puzzle, however that puzzle can only be constructed in one way, which has already been subconsciously determined.

The seconds level is the universal one, which more or less is simple cause and effect on a grand scale. All the variables where set at the moment of the big bang and now things are just playing out in the only way that they can. Quantum behavior though still seems entirely random which would rule this out, but we don't know enough about it yet to say for sure.

Anyway using these two levels we can state the following
If level 1 = true and level 2 = true, then no free will
If level 1 = false and level 2 = true, then no free will
If level 1 = true and level 2 = false, then no free will
If level 1 = false and level 2 = false, then free will

It seems that odds are against free will.

Of course I belive in free willy :confused:

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2007-11-29-free_willy.jpg

I say "absolute free will" to mean there is an actual "I" that has control over it's processing powers (the brain). What I mean is that, sure, we have what I call social free will, in that there is no other person forcing us or keeping us from doing anything. What many people seem to think is that we have "free will" moreso than a robot would have or a dog has, and this I disagree with.

there is an actual I, it's called your mind. It controls itself. Deterministically. I don't see the problem here.

I agree with you that our free will is identical to the free will of a robot or a dog, but the nature of the proposed fundamental difference between our and their decisions remains fuzzy bullshit.

Our current scientific knowledge of the universe only lets us answer this question with redundant deterministic principles.

So... yeah.


A question which you would do well to consider is what creativity is.