How can there be such a thing as free will if our behaviour is determined by our genes and environment?

Question

If we believe in the law of cause and effect, then surely everything we do is caused by something that happens to us, or by the way we are at birth, or by some interaction between the two? Surely the past determines the future? Even if there is some element of randomness, how can something that happens at random be defined as a choice? We have no control over things that happen at random.

Answer 1

The problem with the question of free will is that it's bogged down in various other ideas which may or may not exist.

Let's start with the whole idea of 'free will'. What is free will? How do you know if you have it or not? This question alone has ben the subject of copious debate. One definition has it that if you were free willed you COULD choose a different option given a repetition of a circumstance. It doesn't say that you would (you could choose the same thing over and over and still be free willed), nor does it say how, exactly, to provide an identical circumstance - some people argue that such a thing is impossible.

And that's not even including the possibility of Schrödinger's past and any number of other assumptions necessary to keep the idea going.

The bottom line is that I think the WHOLE CONCEPT of free will is too vague and devoid of descriptive power to have much relevance to anything whatsoever. Let's instead talk about something else - ethics. (Hang on. You'll see where I'm going here.)

There can be little doubt that plants adapt to changes in their environment. They make decisions, whether it is at a biochemical level or further up. Animal decision-making is complex enough to actually get the term 'behaviour' applied to it, and humans may be the most varied of all.

A human child can learn lots of stuff and usually does! But the level of decision-making a child possesses is primitive compared to an adult. One of the primary differences is in not only in deciding one course of action over another, but is a branch or two up, deciding one kind of decision over another or one method of decision making over another. Children do things because they should, but adults can ask whether those 'shoulds' are right or not.

This, I think, is a better vantage point to measure something that you may choose to call 'free will' if you like (I usually call it 'adulthood'; something quite separate from 'maturity'). To draw an example from another species, computers execute programs, but never choose which programs to execute. They are like children - capable of learning a lot and making decisions, but not true moral decisions about right and wrong. Likewise, an adult is given materials from his environment and genetics and may choose among those materials for behaviours, or may choose to find or invent new systems. This is something we observe all the time.

Are those choices limited by environment and genetics? Of course. Everything is. Are they completely determined by them? I'll leave that for you to decide for yourself. ( :

Answer 2

On a Monday night you always come home at 6pm and the news is showing on BBC 1, the remote control is next to you as you sit down, because you have entered that environment does that mean you have to watch the News or can you change the channel through choice ?...

That seems to me to be what your question is saying, that there is no such thing as choice...

In Transactional Analysis it is posited that we make choices in our lives before we are even born, a more Jungian approach would say ( very simply put ) that we choose when, where, how, and to what we are born, but neither appear to suggest that a man born to poverty has to remain in poverty or in any other environment, Malsows Hierarchy of need is a good model to look at here, to paraphrase, given the environment in which to do so, man will always attempt to reach the highest point of self actualisation possible to himself, thus changing his environment by his will.

The above I think starts to answer you in that whilst an environment may be fixed a mans place in it need not, that by choice and effort of will he can change both his environment and himself.

Man can, as I have in the past, make choices that are not helpful, useful or healthy for himself, but he, as I have, continue on to make different choices, choices that are healthy and helpful to himself and therefore taking the opportunity to grow and improve his position.

That's my take on the question anyway ...
Maybe other will have differing ones ...
Hope you find what you are looking for or the variety you may desire ...

Go Well ...

Answer 3

Every behaviour is a learnt behavior either through our genes or our immediate or collective environment, but having said that, this itself makes the human life an ideal playground for the application of freewill and realizing its power. For in human life every choice we make is an opportunity to access the power of freewill, because while we are about to make a choice, we are also being influenced or at least being tried to be influenced by a very important but silent third party, our spirit; and that is what makes all the difference between access our power as a human being to transcend our fate and reach to our destiny or even transcend it.

Freewill give us that chance to over come our circumstantial, genetic and behavioral shortcomings all in one clear go, as we make a choice purely based on our spirit guidance, but that requires considerable awareness or connection with the spirit, plus an innate trust in its guidance, and that further requires self esteem, holding the Self in high esteem.

No wonder we take many life times to master it.

The only randomness there is in the universe in the randomness in the energies with which we make our choices, for that creates in the randomness of the consequences we experience later in life.

Nothing seems more random in life than our birth parents, our birth place and circumstances or even our birth time, but those were the choices we made when we were one with the Spirit itself, though when we come down here we choose to forget that one thing and spend the rest of years trying to overcome our forgetfulness.

And that is what makes this game called life, so fascinating and enchanting that we come back here again and again, only to re-experience the magic of this planet, and the joy of divine longing and merging.

Answer 4

nurture versus nature, there is free will if you eat 7,000,000 donuts during your life and have a heart attack due to your genetics. I have a friend and this friend had ill parents at a very young age, by the time they were in their 40's., both had died. He is extremely determined not to be the same way and has the pulse of a professional athlete. His genetics did not respond well to eating and sugar abuse but I believe he is giving himself the best opportunity for a long life. No the past doesn't determine the future, even investing, the portfolio will say past performance doesn't guarantee future performance
,

Answer 5

Well - Behaviour is not very determinative in haman , but it's developed as deteminative in family and sociate.
Everyone is capable of stoping one or another believ or/and behaviour developed trought his past , but we usulay try to prevent ourself of such action ...
-I think it's close realted to feelings, but this do not means that you must stop feel - just come over some feeling to rise or fall some behaviour ...

This is my point of view - i'm not very sure , but i see it in this way right now ...

Answer 6

Keep in mind that "random" doesn't mean there IS no pattern, just that the pattern of events is hardly discernible by you and I.

The argument that human beings don't have free will doesn't hold up. I choose to act based on some genetic directive -- or not. (People who starve themselves on their deathbed would fit in this category; obviously you need to physically take in nourishment to function effectively, but you ultimately can't be forced to.) I choose to get in out of the sun because I want to cool off or out of the rain because I want to get dry -- or not.

One thing that helped clarify this for me comes out of David Gerrold's novel When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One. The crux of the argument is the difference between a decision and a choice. You make a decision based on cost-benefit analysis; you decide which course to take or which item to buy based on its perceived personal benefit to you. You make a choice when you do this analysis and then go with what you want. You're not thinking about the long run, you're just thinking about this is what I want to do RIGHT NOW. (Killing oneself is a grim example.)

John Maynard Keynes: In the long run, we're all dead.

The free will involved in making a choice is something even God won't override. In Christianity, you are given the choice to accept Jesus His Son as your Savior -- or not. Your free will is more valuable than even salvation is, but with that freedom, just like all others, there's a price to pay. But that's the cost of "free" will.

Answer 7

Answer to Question One; God has a plan for everyone. and it's up to us as Christians to follow our instincts, and our hearts into doing what is pleasing for God. That is our own choice that we make. For instance, if a man decides to go into a school and kill innocent children- was that God's plan? absolutely not. Did he know it would happen? Yes, because He is the Almighty, He knows everything. It was that man's person freedom of choice to make that wrong decision.

Answer 8

I believe the Universe gives us situations, and what we choose to do with them is our free will. You always have a choice of what action to take, even if you make no "active" choice, it's still a choice. For instance, when driving you come to an intersection. You usually go left, but decide in a split second to go straight and end up avoiding an accident. But if you had turned left and were in an accident, but met your future husband, which choice would be the "right" one?? You always have the option of choice.

Answer 9

There is free will within the limitations that our environment and genes set upon us. However, it is true that we accept limitations by choice; and a genetic predisposition only makes you more likely to do something, it doesn't force you.

Answer 10

freewill seem like freedom to choose thats all it is....even your choice of action is still a random action among many actions taken over time...and the past does not determine the future but the present and it ends there.... the future is absolutely in your hands by God's Grace