do you have free will?

Question

Can you really say you have free will?
Are not some things detirmined?

You certainly can't choose intelligence, or we'd all choose to be geniouses who don't have to study to get A's.

You can't choose your preferences, (I like chocolate ice cream, I can't make vanilla taste better to me...)

I will concede that we have choices, but those choices are detirmined by our brains, and our brains are a function of our entire life at the point we make the choice....so it's already primed for a particular choice...it just hasn't been made yet.

Can anyone give me a better definition of free will? and/or can anyone argue that any of this is not sound? I'd love to hear from you, thanks...

Answer 1

Here's my view on the whole 'free will' business:

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 2

I'm undecided on this one.

I ask: What evidence would decide the matter conclusively?

It seems to me that we don't have evidence either way; that 'things might/might not' have been otherwise is not answered by science as it tends to deal with the actual rather than the theoretically possible nature of the world.

What does it all matter anyway?

The singular nature of reality and unity of history neither imply things must have been this way, nor that things might have been otherwise. We can find evidence for both positions, but it is not conclusive either way. That's why this type of debate will do on and on.

So - whatever floats your boat. But if everyone became concerned with this question, the boat of the economy would sink, so let's not spend too long on it sister!

Answer 3

Well, actually, you can make vanilla taste better to you. Studies have shown that by repeated exposure, you learn to like certain foods better. Parents use it all the time to help their kids learn to like vegetables.

But I concede your point. We are bound by our culture, our physical and mental limitations, and by the choices that are available to us. But the existentialists would argue that every single thing is a choice and we are absolutely free to choose whatever we want to choose. And I think the more educated you make yourself about the choices that are available, the more free will you have.

Like everything else, it is a balance. Nothing is all one way or the other. But thanks for giving me something to think about today besides the laundry.

Answer 4

No. Free will is a literal impossibility in the universe in which we find ourselves.

Our mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain, and as such is an emergent behavior of tangible, physical processes, which are perfectly (if probablistically) described by mathematical laws.

Free will doesn't exist. Choice does, but the ability to make a choice is not free will.

Answer 5

Of course we have free will in the restrictions of what we're born with.

But you seem to be mistaking the concept of "free will" with the concept of "being able to do anything." The 2 are different. Free will deals with what is real, with what is. Wanting to choose to be more intelligent or to like vanilla, or to have wings like a bird isn't reality -- it's fantasy.

Free will means in any given circumstance, I have the ability to choose how to respond.

I have the free will to decide between right and wrong, but I don't have the ability to fly because I wasn't born with wings. The fact that I can't fly off on my own wings isn't a violation of my free will, it's biology.

Answer 6

i am going to disagree with you on this-you cant choose intelligence but you can choose not to be ignorant-you cant choose preferences but you can choose to indulge or not-i find that you are narrowing the definition of a word - when i think you should be expanding it-
I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
i believe i exercise free will everyday---but hey its my belief and my choice if you think it is all already set in stone cool bells enjoy the day

Answer 7

If i can get a danger to make a factor unfastened to would possibly magogi ki mujhay bhaut sara meals miley jo ki would possibly un garib folks's would possibly baat saku jinay ki meals nahi mil tha or bina meals kay hello mar ja thay hai.

Answer 8

I choose to answer this question to prove my free-will

you choose to ask it with your free-will

We choose things everyday because of our free-will
Instead of eating what is in the fridge, we choose to go out to eat, that is a form of free-will

as long as no one is holding a gun, knife to your head, throat, you have free-will within the limits of the laws God and Man has set down

Answer 9

This question answers itself.

Answer 10

I chose to answer you .

The answer is Yes we all do