Free will does not exist

I am too stoned to find the best area to post this but I thought I would post it here.

My belief is that ultimately that free will and choice do not exist, that every decision you make is the result of complex biochemical and electrical impulses resolving themselves according to the structure of your brain. Feels of awareness and consciousness are hallucinations.

Ultimately I believe everything is inevitable though I don't think there is any point standing there and going "everything is inevitable" because you can say that but being aware of it does not mean you can escape the process. You might come to the momentary realization that everything is inevitable, but the biological and electrical forces inside your brain will drift your thinking in other directions.

The logical extension to my belief is that everyone is absolutely a product of genetics and environment, thus no criminal is ultimately responsible for their behavior (though punishment and conditioning may effect future criminal behavior). I think criminals should be removed from society to protect society, and for the reactive deterrent effect that this has, but they should not be punished in a retributive way.

Anyway I'm just wasted.

 

Using my free will I decided I would post this reply. Using yours you can either decide to reply back or not.

 

You do realize that this contradicts your point?

 

will, schmill...we're all in a big net playing with the butterfly effect.

..it's for the greater good

 

These are two of my old posts where I expounded on this very topic:

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?p=5460241#post5460241 post #56

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?p=5641528#post5641528 post #821

Here's my current theory of morality in case you're interested:

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...50#post5667850 post #33

 

The question is, considering everything that happened to you today, if the clock was rewound and everything happened the exact same way once again ... would your response to the OP have been the same every single time?

I submit that it would.

 

Isn't the concept of free will entirely in relation to the concept of original sin? It just seems like part of that trap to me. You have to believe your bad decisions are your fault or that religion is done for.

But is there an individual will at all... I guess there's no way to tell just how much you're being controlled. But if your will is being controlled, it must be being controlled by you or it's not yours. So it's not a question of whether or not free will exists but if will exists at all? I'm doing these things, but am I causing myself to do them or is that just the way they go... I suppose there's really no way to tell?

 

That's a great way to look at it Neon, "you" in my eyes is defined by where and when you were born. Everything after that is cause and effect, as well as everything before that. But "you" weren't "you" before that. We need the word "you" because it's so useful, but all "your" actions are determined by your birthplace and time. The same was true of your parents and so forth and so forth all the way back to the big bang and some slight irregularity that caused everything to not be symmetrical, as far as we know...

What do you guys think about the fact that the past is linear, it happened only one way, and it is the past because the way it happened is measurable and we can recall it. The future is the exact same thing, except the farther away from the present the more unsure we are about consequences. Doesn't change the fact that it's linear.

 

I guess this argument just comes down to opinion, and I doubt anyone would change theirs.

Personally I am a big fan of, and believer in, free will as one of the defining aspects of life. Life is just a series of decisions, small and large, and to say that free will does not exist implies everything is already set out for us, that there is no adventure, only predetermined actions.

I've been in situations where I did not know what I would decide until I acted. Many of the decisions I've made could have gone either way.

You are always free to make any choice you like. You can choose to believe that you were always going to make the same choice regardless of anything, that the future is set in stone and that you aren't really free at all. Me, I choose to believe that our decisions are what define us, that the future is unlimited in potential and possibilities, that we are free to do anything we wish.

 

Aren't I literally a consequence of everything, then, at that given point. And therefore a representative of everything in some way? So the question may be of whether or not as observers we are really independent of everything in any real way. If we truly are literally everything, and there's only one universal will, then there's nothing for it to be free from.

 

Why do you believe something just because it is the most desirable thing to believe? I understand the psychological benefits but I think that this habit people have of just believing what they want to believe is detrimental to society in a lot of ways. Its not always pretty but we should be seeking the truth, not lying to ourselves for some false sense of security.


Whether or not free will exists depends on how how you define it. Certainly I have chosen the words to put into this post of my own "free will." And yet what caused me to choose to respond to this thread? And to choose to use the words I used?

I saw a thread, the subject of which was something I have somewhat strong opinions about and which many people posting here seem to have opinions about that contradict my own. I almost feel a need to set the record straight, if you will, or at least get my own point of view out there. Its natural for humans (some more than others) to want to correct others that they believe are wrong.

So this thread triggered thoughts in my brain that triggered me to post.

What if you try to thwart destiny? Say you want to do some thing and you would, in any other case, be compelled for what ever reason (self interest probably) to do it. But you want to prove me wrong, so even though your brain is telling you that you should do it you decide not to.

What you failed to consider is that your desire to prove free will exists is just another factor, and a rather strong one, influencing your behavior. It is a factor not present any other time you would be doing this thing, whatever it is - but your behavior has now changed, not because you exercised free will but because an inspiration found its way into your brain that made NOT doing this thing the more desirable choice in this case.

One of the weirder implications of this is that even your own thoughts are just playing out in their predestined way. If you started over, you would have the same thoughts every time.


Let me put it another way. When it comes to choosing between different courses of action in any situation there are basically two possibilities.

The first is that one of the choices is clearly better than the others. in this case you will obviously choose the best choice, unless of course you are trying to prove that free will exists - except you would STILL be choosing what your brain believes to be the best course of action because the desire to prove me wrong has taken precedence over whatever other needs or desires would have influenced your decision otherwise.

The second is that there are two or more possible choices that are, as far as your brain can evaluate, equally "good."

In the first case, you will obviously always choose the best option - or I should say you will always choose the option you believe is best. If you are trying to prove free will exists then choosing the option that seemingly benefits you the least would actually, in this case, benefit you the most - or at least you believe it will.

In the second case you will have to choose randomly from among two or more equal alternatives. I would argue that this is not even really "random" though, that there are subtle memories and thought processes that will decide which alternative is randomly chosen. But even if you assume that the choice IS truly random, this is not free will. Your destiny in that case would be controlled by a roll of the dice.

Which brings me to another point. Free will is logically impossible. Think about it. Either your decisions are influenced by everything you have ever experienced up to the point of making the decision and your genes, or you choose randomly. Or perhaps a combination of the two. I challenge you to come up with any other way we could possibly make decisions that might be considered "free will."

 

My current actions are the necessary consequence of the past and the laws of nature however the past and the laws of nature are not under my control therefor my current actions are not under my control. I can have a desire and I can act in accordance with it but it is not up to me whether I desire a particular thing, and it is not up to me whether I have a conflicting desire which could cause the first desire to not come to fruition. Even if events in the world are not deterministic I still cannot be free because if my behavior is random or not determined then it is not determined by me. Also many points of my life which were important for the development of my character were outside of my control, so I am not responsible for forming the character from which my actions flow and I am therefor not the ultimate source of my actions. These events can include things like prenatal stress exposure which influences the state of the stress centers in the brain. However this does not imply that we cannot punish people for committing crimes. We can punish people when they are fit subjects of a reactive attitude, but we must admit that they are not morally responsible for their actions.

 

That's not why I believe in free will. I believe in free will because it is logical to me, and the experiences I've had indicate that I have free will.

I don't have any desire to prove anything. I know what makes sense to me.

Like I said, this discussion comes down to opinions, and as you mentioned, each individuals definition of free will is different.

Of course we are influenced by our experiences and genetic makeup in the things we do. Those things provide us with guidance. Experience tells me that if I spend too much time in the sun, I will be burnt. That doesn't mean I'm not free to hang out in the sun till I'm burnt to a crisp.

For your challenge: We use our reason and common sense, figure out what the best choice would be for us, and then decide. That wasn't very hard.

I think everything being predestined is much, much more far-fetched than free will. But again - it comes down to semantics and opinion.

 

gEo, I think your post was excellent. Like you say free will is logically impossible. No matter how the universe operates (determined, indeterminate, or a mix of both) there is no room for free will. It really doesn't come down to opinion or semantics. We certainly have surface freedoms. By that I mean we can act in accordance with our desires, provided that there are no constraints placed upon us, and we can even act against our desires (such as for the purpose of trying to demonstrate to someone that we don't have to act in accordance with our first order desires) but a deeper freedom than this is not possible. It is not up to me what my desires are, or whether I have the motivation to form a second order desire about my first order desires. We are not the ultimate sources of our actions.

 

Whether or not we have free will is irrelevant, as either way our actions (or reactions, behaviours, etc) are not influenced. If we don't have free will, we will still live with the illusion of it, and if we do have free will, we will live no differently. Determinism is just mental masturbation with no pragmatic implications.

 

I agree with gEo_tehaD_returns.

Yet there are some many questions and so few answers. I strongly beleive that I am creating my life... could this ''I'' be a damn illusion? It's feel like touching something beyond our perception of reality...

 

I want to know what the pragmatic implications of determinism are, if any at all.

And if none, then how might you try to rationalize running around and obnoxiously telling everyone that they don't have free will and that their existence is predetermined and meaningless, trying to debate them, etc.

 

^^ I understand your point. But predetermined doesn't mean meaningless. Human can still act. The more we understand what's behind us the more we can live a meaningful life. Meaning can be determined by understanding, it doesn't make it less meaningful. If we live without questionning the causes and effects of our existance, that is okay, but I personnaly find it's a lot of fun to discover what's really going on.

 

So we can act, question our actions, and deliberate and reflect on them, and yet we don't have free will?

 

For me, the greatest benefit of Determinism is being able to completely rationalize away guilt, as long as you know you are doing your absolute best at present.