if Einstein disputed free will why do you think your opinion Carry's so much worth?

Question

In a 1932 speech to the German League for Human Rights, Einstein summarized his dismissal of free will in these terms:

I don’t believe in the freedom of the will. Schopenhauer’s saying, that a human can very well do what he wants, but cannot will what he wants, accompanies me in all of life’s circumstances and reconciles me with the actions of humans, even when they are truly distressing. This knowledge of the non-freedom of the will protects me from losing my good humor and taking much too seriously myself and my fellow humans as acting and judging individuals.[56]

because you can choose to have one shugar or two in your coffiey, what makes you think you have free choise?

Answer 1

I would think infinite number of times before trying to disbelieve what Einstein ever said or believed.... I find no reason not to believe this one... freewill is just a grand illusion..... there are two reasons in my view

Firstly everything being uncertain in this world, we can never be sure we can choose as we want all the time.
Secondly, even when we believe we have made a choice, do we know all that is influencing our mind to make that choice? If not, then we can not be sure even then about whether we exercised our own freewill or just served some other purpose of someone else without knowing it ourselves.

There is also this issue of conflicting or opposite freewill of different people at the same time..... since the eventual happening can only be one way, it is obvious that all the concerned people would not be able to exercise freewill successfully in that respect.

Finally, how important is making a choice anyway, if it can not guarantee the intended eventual result?

Answer 2

If we try to pin down what might be meant by the idea of free will, it melts away and slips through our fingers. Superficially it means the ability to make free choices, but what exactly is free about a choice? If the actual choice we make at any given point is the result of our innate nature, plus environmental influences, plus all of our life experiences, then it really comes down to cause and effect - a bit of this influence, a bit of that influence, factor in how happy or grumpy we happen to be that day, and out pops a choice, like plugging numbers into a spreadsheet and seeing the result appear at the bottom. It's hard to see that such a choice can be called 'free' in any significant sense - at least, not without saying that therefore tornados and rivers and volcanoes also have free choice. We are certainly complex, and hard to predict, but then so is the weather, and we don't therefore conclude that the weather has free will.

Is cause and effect the only principle to consider? Well, if we live in a non-deterministic universe, as seems to be the case, then we might also suppose that there is a genuine randomness which means that cause and effect can never be determined with 100% accuracy, but this doesn't obviously save the concept of free will either - to have our thoughts and actions influenced by entirely random factors over which we have no control would seem to *detract* from our free will rather than providing a sound basis for it... and again, we would be no different from any other physical process in that respect.

So, the idea of free will would appear to be not so much false, as simply unintelligible. If we are part of the material universe, made of atoms and molecules, subject to the same forces as any other physical object, then how can we claim to have some property that nothing else in the known universe possesses? What can legitimately be called 'free' about being driven by cause and effect and/or random chance?

Well, one thing we do have, which other complex natural phenomena do not, is intelligence. Specifically, we have the ability to anticipate the likely consequences of our actions, and the tendency to modify our behaviour accordingly. A hurricane moving across the North Atlantic towards the coast of the USA might continue on its path, quickly lose its energy over the land and dissipate, or it might veer away and intensify over the ocean, but it is strictly governed by the forces of nature - it has neither the knowledge of what could happen to it nor the ability to change it. In contrast, human beings have the unique ability to foresee what is likely to happen, and that foresight is then an additional influence - usually a very large influence - on subsequent events. In principle there is nothing to stop me plunging my hand into a pan of boiling water, but my anticipation of the consequences far outweighs any inclination to try it. It's still the principle of cause and effect governing events, so in that strict sense the outcome is no more 'free' than the fate of the hurricane, but the anticipation and the will to act on it do make human actions qualitatively different from unthinking physical processes.

I think this is the way to resolve the apparent paradox that, on the one hand, we know we are made of the same stuff and are subject to the same laws of physics as any other object, and on the other hand that it *feels* like we have a freedom that inanimate objects and systems simply do not have. This way of accounting for free will is perfectly consistent with our current understanding of the material universe, it doesn't demand any exotic new kind of physics and it certainly doesn't require us to have any mystical component that influences the material universe but is not part of it (e.g. a 'soul' or a 'spirit').

Answer 3

I agree we don't have the type of free will he is referring to in this passage. He's talking about willing something we want to happen. Just because I will myself to be rich, I'm not going to be rich. There is a combination of things including luck, hard work, innate talents and the environment around us that have impact in addition to free will.

That doesn't mean there is no free will, just that free will is not exclusive. There are many things that affect our destiny. Some we control and some we don't. To be happy you have to try and focus on the ones you do have the most control over.

edit - I just realized I didn't address your question about why I would think my opinion has so much worth. I don't think mine has more worth than any other. I think every opinion has worth. If nothing else it's worth is that it can be proved wrong. There are very few if any absolute truths, only things that are more and less true. If you didn't have the less true than you couldn't have more. Truth evolves from that which is not true and is constantly changing based on new information and circumstances.

Answer 4

Referencing dictionary.com, this is how I define free will::

Free - able to do something at will; at liberty (liberty - power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice)

Will - the act or process of using or asserting one's choice (choice - to select from a number of possibilities; pick by preference)


So, free choice to me is the liberty to select from a number of possibilities according to preference (here's my addition) without extreme amounts of abritrary forces compelling me. When I say I want two sugars in my coffee, by the definition I provided I have free will - no one was attempting to compel me and I had multiple options. I'd be interested in hearing why you don't consider that free will/choice.

I am not sure what Einstein means by "they cannot will what they want".

I do not share his good humor towards people because I am still stuck under the possible illusion that people have free choice/will - I did my best to explain why. Under the same definition I provided before, a person who chooses to cut me off in traffic (put their desires and needs above my own) is held responsible by me - not in any tangible sense because I am unable to instigate consequences beyond my negative judgement which doesn't even affect them. When someone cuts in line, they have multiple options available to them and they choose to be self-serving.

If we go by the idea that there is no free-will, no one can be held accountable for anything they do. Would you really be content in a world like that?

I couldn't - if the American government was allowed to enslave me or to violate my human rights as defined by the American consitution, to do whatever they wanted because they are merely pawns to determinism I'd be very discontent indeed.

If the will that Einstein refers to is really the ability to make whatever circumstance I want to come to fruition, then I agree, but I don't see how it then follows that people should not be held accountable for the decisions they make.

Answer 5

In addition to scientific considerations, common sense insists that Free Will exists. Who would deny that we have Free Will when we put one foot in front of the other and decide, of our own volition, of our own Free Will, to go for a walk or not go for a walk? It is clearly irrational to believe that a chain of causality at the time of the Big Bang determines if we go for a walk this afternoon, or not.

Human society has existed for millennia. It has been able to prosper only by holding its members responsible for their actions. They cannot fall back to a predermined-lackof-free-will argument to explain their actions.

Answer 6

This statement was a moderation of an extreme view. Example, I cannot fly by flapping my arms even if I want to. It is not meant to be taken to the extreme case. Example, we have no need for a conscience or to feel remorse for the harmful things we have done because we have no free will.

I am sick personally of that Calvinistic tripe.

Answer 7

the thing i dont get is why do we get in to this freewill by my definition is the ablity to chose what is right or wrong by what choices you have in front of you and also the ablity to chose to go left or right at any time you want to to pick if you eat food with a little fat or lot if you work hard or only enough to get by people freak me out no free will you can chose any thing that you do for whatever reason you want to even doing it just because you dont care about the out come but you can not chose what every thing else does around you like the sun what if it went dark no light nothing blocking it you can not control that but how you react to it you can even if you are full of fear now judgment is not always good when you are fearful but you still choice what you did but if someone kills you. you have no choice in that even though you took the path there you chose what way what you ate the path you took to get there you can not control any thing else only you you can effect things around you even change some of the out comes and make things around you fit your box but you cant you can only live life sitting here wondering what is going to come next and have hope and work to make yourself a better person no matter what anyone else does you picked your path you and only you made the choices you made even Einstein had a choice man he failed math so much in school but he stuck with it he made that choice and is now well known for some great thinking but the thing is that we as people take the great thinking of the past and twist it to our own good hence the world as it is now why is the world so twisted that it wants to believe that what it does is not is freewill on each persons part but we allow past actions of others to make us feel we can bull shit all of it you chose to allow what ever bothers you to do so you no one else i can not make something from nothing as Einstein said "but cannot will what he wants" none of us can will the evils to go away but we can will the evils out of us by what we do what we read how we act learn to live with what has been done by others and the world around you you can not change billions of people you could try but no man here on earth or who will walk the earth forever onward will ever be able to control the world and keep it together each person can only pick his own way but he can be helped by whom he choses so chose well each and every one of you

Answer 8

I agree with him and Schopenhauer. There are forces beyond our control or even our knowledge that influence what we do or say. The universe guides our way to whatever end that lies in store for us and there is very little we can do to change its course. We all march abreast with flags flying and bands playing to our common end and no one can say why.

Answer 9

Freedom of the will and free will are different.
He said a human cannot will want he wants.
I agree.
We have free choice, we can choose this or that.
But a human cannot will want he wants,
ie. you cannot change someones will,
you cannot will it to happen.
Our will is not free, it belongs to our karma.
Ones karma dictates what you will have freewill over.

Freedom of will only comes when your will is Gods will.
God will have his way in the world.
Gods will is.

Answer 10

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