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Post by deadendphilosopher on Apr 7, 2006 14:48:53 GMT -5
I used to think people have free will, but now it seems impossible. As far as I know, in any circumstance people can only do what they think will make them happy- in order to do anything they must have motivation. Even if someone hated themself and tried to punish themself through torture, they would still be doing it because they thought it would make them happy- they would only do it if they thought it would bring some relief or some other desired end.
This means that in any situation in which a person is faced with a choice (basically every situation), the person's knowledge of what will make him/her happy is the only factor. And a person's knowledge comes from previous experiences and physiological development. If my reasoning is correct, that would mean that people don't have free will at all. Everything they do is determined by the past.
However, I have a feeling that my reasoning is faulty. Most people I know believe there is free will. I would love to hear other people's views on this matter.
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Post by feyish on Apr 7, 2006 15:53:17 GMT -5
Humans are fated to have free-will well, okay there is a lne of reasoning here. but i do have to say this: i don't think isolating myself will make me happy, but i do it anyways, so the 'happieness rule' doesn't seem to apply. the 'previous experiance' rule will cause a person to tend to aviod anything that they might think will bring pain. but the first step in determining whether humans have free will is to answer this question: What is free will?
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Post by sushiboat on Apr 7, 2006 16:27:06 GMT -5
Everything is part of the chain of cause and effect. You may be "free" from some particular influence at any given time, but you are never free from all influences. You can never be free from who you are, and who you are is caused by the combination of your biology and your environment.
That doesn't mean you can stop making effort without any effect. Your effort is part of the chain of events. If you change the amount of effort or where the effort is directed, you will probably change the outcome.
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Post by Tal on Apr 7, 2006 16:36:14 GMT -5
Depends if 'free will' is defined as the maximum potential freedom of decision, or the average level of freedom exercised. Sure experiences, knowledge, social background etc etc will have an impact on what decisions you make, and 'Human nature' will likewise intervene to make you choose certain actions.
However, none of these things actually stops you from doing something, if you're determined to do it. e.g. If the fear of death prevailed, no one would ever commit suicide (no experience of death either).
I also briefly pondered whether the argument was circular - whether you could actually base a decision on experience you wouldn't have until you commmited to your decision. I guess the experience could be gradually accumulated, meaning every decision is based on increasingly larger bits of experience, but still, I can't believe experience (or otherwise existing stimuli) is the only thing behind us making a decision.
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Post by cyclopse on Apr 7, 2006 22:48:43 GMT -5
This sounds like something we went over in one of my philosophy(Technology & Human Value). Really interesting class it dragged alittle but it did make you think. The professor was out their in left field to a little bit but overall an intelligent guy. I wish now i would have payed more attention. I might try to see if i still have this not sure if i sold it back for like $3.00 when it cost me $50.00. Gotta love it
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Post by Stranger on Apr 8, 2006 7:41:35 GMT -5
I believe in cause and effect too. I think the future (including our actions) is wholly dependent on the current state of the universe. Does that mean we can ever predict the future? Probably not... if we could ever predict our fate, that fate would have to include the fact that we predicted it, and, in many cases, acted to avoid it, which presents somewhat of a paradox. That doesn't discount determinism, though. It could be just that it would take more time to determine an event, and therefore act to prevent it, than it would take for it to happen. That's what I believe. And if it is the case, then the question of whether we were fated to do something, or whether we chose to do it (and therefore could have chosen not to do it) is moot, since we could only choose to avoid an event that's already happened, by which time it's too late and we can say we were fated to do it. This wasn't an option on your poll, though...
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Post by scottydstno on Apr 9, 2006 18:11:43 GMT -5
I like this subject but I've never been able to explain my opinion on it lol. I'm a Christian and I believe in predestination to an extent, yet I also believe in free will. I beleive man was given free will, but at the same time I believe that there is an omniposent creator of our universe who knows of every single little detail that will ever take place in any person's life, which would mean that in essence He had kind of already destined all of it, as if all existance were a dream or thought in the mind of a much higher being that we can't even comprehend. Yet even though I believe He knows it all, we still have the freedom of choice in my opinion, at least as far as our minds determining what free will is can comprehend.
So I don't really know what to vote lol, but that's my personal view.
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Post by wagnerr on Apr 10, 2006 12:53:46 GMT -5
I am a firm believer in free will. I think humans have the freedom to screw up their lives to the fullest extant possible.
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Post by deadendphilosopher on Apr 17, 2006 13:56:59 GMT -5
feyish: I defiinately should have defined free will. I would say free will is the ability to choose without being controled by external circumstances. You said you don't think isolating yourself will make you happy, yet you continue to do it anyway, but it seems to me that this can't be true. You must have some motivation to isolate yourself, and even if this doesn't make you happy in the long run, I would suspect it minimizes the discomfort you feel in social situations, making you happier (though probably not happy) in the short run then throwing yourself into social situations. If this isn't the case, what reason would you have to isolate yourself. Even if you have no reason to isolate yourself and just do it for no reason (although I don't think this is possible), how would that even be free will? It would be a random decision made for random reasons. No choice would be involved, because it wouldn't really be a decision as far as I can tell, just a random occurance. I'm not thinking very clearly right now so please correct me if I'm wrong.
sushiboat: I agree with you completely if you mean wether or not you will make an effort also depends on who you are, which as you said depends on your biology and the environment.
Tal: You said that experience, knowledge, social background, and human nature have an influence on the decisions you make, but that they can't really stop you if you want to do something. However, don't these things (and others if you are spiritual) determine what you are?Like sushiboat said, "You can never be free from who you are..." If experience is not the only thing behind making a decision, what else is?
Stranger: I'm not sure if I completely understand what you said in your reply. By determinism, I didn't mean the future could be determined by humans, just that everything that will happen is dependent on everything that has ever happened.
scotydstno: I kind of get what you are saying about the creator knowing everything that will happen in the universe, only I think of it as whatever happens is going to happen even if no one knows what that will be, so there is only one way in which the universe will unfold, which in a way means it's determined. I think quantum physics might shatter that paradigm though, but I'm not sure. I would love to hear a physicist's opinion on the matter. However I really can't understand exactly why you believe in free will other than the fact that your religion might say that. I guess that is just the problem of words; they don't convey the full meaning.
Russman!!!!: What makes you think it is freedom that makes people screw up thier lives?
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Post by GreenFerret on Apr 17, 2006 16:23:07 GMT -5
feyish: I defiinbately should have defined free will. I would say free will is the ability to choose without being controled by external circumstances. If that is free will, then yeah, I'd say it can't exist. All things are influenced by external circumstances; it's the way of existence, isn't it? If that's how you've come to define free will, I would say there isn't much argument--It could not possibly exist. However, I would agree with the people who say that free will is simply the ability to choose; the possibility of having chosen a path other than the one you took. I don't think that predictability is the same as fate--for instance, you might predict be examining the DNA of a zygote that it would eventually produce a person with kinky brown hair--and when he's born with exactly that sort of hair on his head, no one would say it was "fate." I mean, does it really matter if there are influences that go into a decision? If that were not the case, then all decisions would just be arbitrary selections, no option being greater than any other because there would be no point of reference--no external influence--to consider. In which case it would all be down to the way the mind is physically and chemically put together, which would mean that biology would still stand in the way of free will. So I don't think "free will" could exist even hypothetically, because to make the decision--to get the output--you need some kind of input (an outside influence) and something to process the input, the nature of which would inevitably affect the outcome. To me free will is the ability to weigh the options and use past experience--external influences--to make a selection.
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Post by sushiboat on Apr 17, 2006 16:38:06 GMT -5
When discussing free will, it's pretty obvious that most people want it, or something like it. What is it that people want? I think that we want to believe that the conscious, rational part of us is contributing to many of the choices we make. This conscious, rational part isn't the only factor, and it is subject to other forces. However, the good news is that the conscious, rational part of us does play a role.
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Post by scottydstno on Apr 17, 2006 22:49:06 GMT -5
Yea, basically. If assuming that there is a creator of all time and existance though, there'd be nothing that He wouldn't know, even things that are far far beyond what a human mind would ever be able to comprehend in all the future of the universe. So technically yea, I believe we are given free will, at least, what our idea of free will is. Yet when talking about an omniposent creator the mistake that a lot of people make is comparing Him to us, but it doesn't work like that. I like to think "outside the box" . If there is a God who created all existance, then yes in our physical limited minds I do believe in our definition of free will, yet I also believe that everything that ever has and will exist is already known about by God (assuming that He exists, which I personally believe He does), which would technically mean that it has already been destined, yet, we still have free will lol. As if we are all a part of Him basically (not in a physical way). The way a human thinks and determines things and sees the universe in other words is not the way that an omniposent creator would. It's fun to think about, it can make you come up with some wild thoughts and questions.
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Post by Stranger on Apr 18, 2006 6:58:37 GMT -5
Stranger: I'm not sure if I completely understand what you said in your reply. By determinism, I didn't mean the future could be determined by humans, just that everything that will happen is dependent on everything that has ever happened. Hmm, I thought this was one of those "are we all destined to do whatever we end up doing, or do we control our future?" type debates, which, I've convinced myself, all boils down to nothing. I jumped to the future-prediction thing because it seems natural to me to conclude that if everything was all cause-and-effect, then, theoretically, we should be able to calculate the state of anything at any point in the future if only we had the knowledge. And then the sceptics would go "wait a minute, if you could do that, then you could just avert your prediction and your silly little world of science and logic collapses in on itself " (yes, they would really poke their little tongues out). So I thought some more and came up with a way around that (see post up there : that lets me live on in my miserable little deterministic hole. Yes, I do believe it's all determinable. I think all my thoughts and actions are byproducts of the weird and wonderful physical and chemical reactions going on in and around my flimsy flailing body. I believe consciousness and life as we experience it is an illusion created by processes occurring inside the brain that no-one yet understands, and likely never will understand because brains are too darn complicated. I don't know if anyone understood a thing I said in either of my posts here, but I really do think I have it sussed. ;D I like chocolate.
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Post by deadendphilosopher on Apr 18, 2006 15:52:33 GMT -5
GreenFerret: You said that "free will is the ability to chose; the possibility of having chosen a path other then the one you took," however I don't see how it is possible to have chosen a path other than the one you took if all things are influenced by external circumstances, as you agreed they are. Any time when you have to make a choice, it seems that choice is determined by who/what you are, which is determined by external events. Therefore there would only be one choice you could make. For instance, theoretically (I know this would really be impossible if anything is impossible) if you had two people who were exactly the same and were put in exactly the same situation where they had to make a choice, they would choose the same thing no matter what. If the external circumstances were the same they would obviously live exactly the same lives as each other. So how is that having "the possibility of having chosen a path other than the one you took." The only way that could happen would be if you had been shaped by different circumstances, but wouldn't that make you a different person?
You also said, "I mean, does it really matter if there are influences that go into a decision? If that were not the case, then all decisions would just be arbitrary selections, no option being greater than any other because there would be no point of reference--no external influence--to consider. In which case it would all be down to the way the mind is physically and chemically put together, which would mean that biology would still stand in the way of free will.
So I don't think "free will" could exist even hypothetically, because to make the decision--to get the output--you need some kind of input (an outside influence) and something to process the input, the nature of which would inevitably affect the outcome. " I agree with this, but I also think that making a choice isn't hypothetically a possibility either, for the same reasons.
If your definition is that free will "is the ability to weigh the options and use past experience--external influences--to make a selection" then I guess I would agree with you, as long as you agree that "the ability to weigh options" comes from external influences. I do wonder however, what your definition of determinism is.
Another thought just occured to me. I think it is very likely that everything is One- that everything is just Being (a philosophy found in many religions and traditions). If this is the case, in the big picture, I don't think there would be any such thing as "external events." Wouldn't this be another reason to believe that free-will couldn't even exist hyppothetically? Wouldn't it also mean that determinism couldn't exist hypothetically? I would love to hear other people's point of views!
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Post by scottydstno on Apr 18, 2006 19:37:59 GMT -5
Very interesting Sorta, it's fun to think about lol. Yesssssss!
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