Do we have freewill?

Question

How can you believe in free will? Everything around us effects who we are. We didn't choose our surroundings, we really don't start making chooses till we're in our teens. Then we can actually change our environment. Even our thoughts are just random. We don't control thinking about the girl we sat next to in 5th grade math. It came from no where. Random neurons going off causing things. I know we can say, 'Hey I'm going to get a sandwhiche,' or, 'I think I'll go talk to that person over there and ask them,' but did we really choose this. Wouldn't someone in our shoes that have experienced exactly what we have done the same exact thing?

Answer 1

for some reason i completely agree with you

Answer 2

No, someone else would not have done the same exact thing, because that someone else has different DNA. You have half the DNA of each parent; identical twins have the most in common in DNA, but as they age, their DNA changes from each other.
I agree, we do not have complete free will. I reckon that is an "ideal". But, neither are we locked into "preordination". We do have some power over our fates; some call it "luck"; some claim they make their own luck; some claim they have no choice at all. Well, I had the choice to answer or not answer this, but decided it might be fun!
Funny you should think about the girl in 5th grade math: all of my 5th grade classes were in the same room taught by the same teacher, who was also the principal; all the students were, therefore, the same for each class! Now, junior high and high school....

Answer 3

1) Just because you can conceive of all brain processes as being random, it doesn't mean that they are. There is much that is not understood about the physical universe. Some of the brain's functions would require a deeper understanding of quantum mechanics. And just because we can "fit" reality in a model, it doesn't mean that reality IS that model - i.e. a model of New York City is not New York City and no matter how complex you make it, you can't account for everything that could happen in the real city.
So until science describes the last iota of the brain, understands what matter is, and how it can give rise to consciousness, you can not declare that all brain functions are pre-ordained. You simply don't know.
2) Just because there are determinants about you, it doesn't mean you don't have free will. I am sitting in a room with three doors and one window. I can not leave the room through a wall without hurting myself seriously. I do, however, have four choices if I wish to exit the room. The walls are not constraints, as such: They are just reality. Without the structure of reality, no freedom would be possible.
3) Thoughts may be random, but we have a certain power over them. The regular practice of medidation is one way in which humans have shown they can considerably increase their awareness of their own thoughts and, through a sort of meta-consciousness, make choices as to which train of thought they allow to flow, and which they put an halt to.
4) The problem tends to dissappear if you think of a person as an entire entity. This kind of freedom problem tends to occur for people who cling to a cartesian universe. You say my brain determines my thoughts. What if I tell you I am also a body as well as a mind? In that case, my brain is part of me and I see no conflict in the idea that my brain gives me these thoughts, since my brain is the part of me which produces thoughts.
5) By adopting your point of view, you stand on the somewhat shaky rhetorical ground that neither you, nor your opponent is free to believe otherwise than what they believe. Why bother expressing your view, if the people who disagree with you are not free to change their minds, anyway? Perhaps because you have no other choice than to argue those views?

Answer 4

When you explain it like that, it is hard to believe, but we do.
Yes, everything around us DOES affect who we are, but WE choose what to do about our surroundings. And even though we go through many years not making any real decisions, we still do have free will, but the choices aren't very large. For example, no one can choose when a baby will start crying because he's hungry or something except the baby himself. Often, things are not random, but we are reminded of that particular thing/thought by some kind of reference.
Someone else in our shoes would, most likely, do something different IF the choice you made was illogical. Or, they might do something more illogical because they thought it would be better.

So, yes, we do have free will.

Answer 5

The thesis that whatever will happen in the future is already unavoidable (where to say that an event is unavoidable is to say that no human is able to prevent it from occurring). Here is a typical argument;

(1) There exist now propositions about everything that might happen in the future.

(2) Every proposition is either true or else false.

(3) If (1) and (2), then there exists now a set of true propositions that, taken together, correctly predict everything that will happen in the future.

(4) If there exists now a set of true propositions that, taken together, correctly predict everything that will happen in the future, then whatever will happen in the future is already unavoidable.

(5) Whatever will happen in the future is already unavoidable.

The main objections to arguments like this have been to premises (2) and (4). The rationale for premise (2) is that it appears to be a fundamental principle of semantics, sometimes referred to as The Principle of Bivalence (or just Bivalence for short). The rationale for premise (4) is the claim that no one is able to make a true prediction turn out false.

Answer 6

Freewill or Determinism?

Many great scientists, philosphers and theologians grappled with freewill as a very difficult subject. Do we ever choose?

Choice is possible only when we reason and reasoning is the faculty of our brain to produce decisions. The fact that we think one decision is right and another wrong, while someone else thinks the exact opposite is due precisely to our ability to reason.

Freewill must be defined as the freedom to reason, i.e., the freedom of one person to take all the information at his disposal and work with it until he arrives at a conclusion that does not contradict reality.

For example: it is not possible to decide which of these two answers is the correct one just by looking at them:

2,978 x436 = 1,298,408 or 1,289,408

One has to choose the correct one only by means of doing a specific process of reasoning. But one is free to gamble, and choose the answer he prefers without making any effort. Freewill is the freedom of choosing by reasoning or not. Nobody can compel anyone to think one way or another. That would be determinism.

The process of emptying one's mind of the reasoning ability can occur through hypnosis. That's when we surrender our freewill to someone else we trust will not harm us. We let someone else make choices or decisions for us.

To deny freewill is the same as denying that we can reason. Freewill is just another word for what our brain is capable of doing: reasoning. If we did not have this mental capacity, no learning could ever take place. This is exactly the kind of capacity that is lacking in the animals and this is exactly why you will never hear of animals capable of doing math, animals that specialize in the knowledge of medicine, animal architects, artists, astronomers, animals that can change and improve their living conditions, animals that will ever build a civilization and a culture. Animals have no freewill and no reasoning ability, therefore what they choose is by their biological conditioning.

Do humans have a biological conditiong? Of course they do. We are animals that think! That's our biological conditioning. We cannot say that since our brain is a biological organ its reasoning function is invalid or does not exist! The reasoning function of the brain is to reason so a choice and a decision can be made. We reason, we choose, we decide precisely because our brain has evolved to become specialized to do these things which the animals can't do.

Natural selection has produces a great variety of different living organisms, each with organs specialized to do things adapted for living in certain manner. Bats have a radar-like specialization to capture flying insects in the dark that we do not have, but bats do not have a brain that let's them choose to learn mathematics! This is the law of causality. Each tool is specialized to do its job. Our brains cause us to think because that's what brains are for, but they do not cause us to think automatically the right answers of anything. The faculty of the brain is to give us the information we need to do the thinking, but thinking is not an automatic process like the pumbing of blood of the heart. Thinking requires the effort of volition.

If we want to say that most people prefer to let other people do most of their thinking, that is fine. We do have the choice to make the effort or trust that the effort that other people have made with their thinking produces the right answers. Unfortunately, that is what we call faith and with faith one cannot prove anything, not even the correctness of a simple multiplication.

Answer 7

Good comments and I almost completely agree with you because of the word "Will".. Unless one sees himself as the ultimate in control, he can will nothing for there is always something or someone with greater authority or power to prevent the "will" from being.

I do have a reserve though in the thought of one free choice in one option that all mankind must and will make. That choice is to accept that there is a God in control of all that or to reject that idea. If the choice is made, the "will" that is desired is already locked in place to be the resulting will but not by the one making the choice. It is locked in place by the God of all creation who did already declare it to be a fact.

Thus I guess in one view I do agree with you because I must call the decision a free choice and not free will. I just had the reservation because I see none of this in your argument in your comments.

Answer 8

We are always influenced by others, that is why all of us are made from the pieces of others. Other people always edit our lives, but you will always have a choice to accept or except other people's opinions.

Do we have UTTER freewill? The answer is no. We all have to follow the laws of nature and we can't always do what we want. If I want to live another 1,000 years, I still can't do it.

Answer 9

Of course we do. While many people do not realize it, each of us, barring mental disorder, have the right to choose how we react to anything. While we may say "She made me mad", the reality is that we chose to react with anger, which gives away our power to the other person. We could also choose not to get angry and retain the power over ourselves. Like it or not, we always have a choice of how we react. Sometimes it takes education and practice to learn this, but this is truth and as they say, the truth will set you free! blessings

Answer 10

What in case you desperate to apply your freewill to flow on an severe starvation strike. could you be justified in complaining to God which you died as a effect? What in case you chosen to apply your freewill to stroll throughout the time of railroad tracks while a practice enhance into coming. could you be justified in whining to God that the practice could desire to have swerved? And what in case you used your freewill to rob a financial institution? particular, you may rob the financial institution, yet you will go through the end results of this selection by skill of being incarcerated in detention center. you may elect sturdy or undesirable, suitable or incorrect, gentle or darkness. yet you may no longer elect the as a results of the suggestions you're making. in case you're making righteous options, you will get carry of the effect of going to heaven. in case you're making unrighteous options, you will get carry of the effect of going to hell. God will on no account stress everyone into heaven or hell. you elect the place you will flow based on the variety you have used your freewill in this existence. This includes determining whether or to no longer have self assurance in and settle for Christ. i'm sorry, yet i do no longer think of your argument is a powerful reason to be an atheist.

Answer 11

You wouldn't have asked this question if there was no such thing as free will. I choose free will even if it is an illusion. Nothing is absolute.