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Post #81
This is pretty much what I wanted to say after reading this thread. Lightning strikes were probably thought to be random, or perhaps determined by some kind of supernatural entity. Now we know that it's merely the discharge of an electricity build-up in the clouds, which is very measurable and non-random.
What I'm saying is that everything appears random until it doesn't.
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There's an establish definition for fate(destiny) and you can't change it just because you think it means something else. You're talking about causal determinism, so use the correct word and stop calling it fate.
A brain would be more complex, but it's still subject to the laws of nature and if you know all of the inputs and preexisting conditions, the outcome can be predicted, just like a rock. The brain and our consciousness is nothing more than cause and effect. There is no mystical "choice" involved, there are merely chemical and electrical interactions.
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So, having a free will allows you to create shit from space? What the fuck.
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Don't forget electrical interaction.
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Pardon my rudeness but I think you may be a little out of your depth here.
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Religion would be the only reason to think people have free will. From a non religious viewpoint arguing for free will would be comparable to arguing for God. (absolutely no reason to believe that it exists)
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I'm not sure what the definition for "Free Will" is. If it's being able to choose what we do, we all have it. We can choose to kill someone, you can kill yourself, you can choose to say something at any time.
I'm not sure what any other definitions would be.
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No.. you're right.
Yeah basically my thoughts too, but apparently "Free Will" isn't about that, not that simple at least.
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If your definition of free will is having the capacity to make decisions, we have it. The other position is that because the physical process occurring in our brains is ultimately rigid and deterministic (if it is; something impossible to demonstrate analytically) , our freedom of will is constrained because there is still always only one possible outcome for the universe.
Personally I'm of the opinion that we can easily understand free will just to mean having the capacity to make decisions; I don't think we necessarily need any sort of transcendental notion for us to be free in as much as we are a single entity. It's a constrained sort of free will, not comparable to a Christian conception, for example, easily reconcilable.
Edited:
People who are arguing against free will are just extending their view of the universe as a deterministic entity that only has one possible outcome to saying that because our input is ultimately predetermined, we have no free will.
I disagree with this charge, because in as much as I am a physical body in the universe, my actions have implications on the outcome of the universe. I make decisions, and in some sense of the word I have the capacity to do X or not X. Just because we're built out of predictable atoms it doesn't undermine the fact we do make decisions.
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I disagree, because the way our decisions are made are determined by physical law. We may feel like we have the capacity to do X or not X, but we don't really. It's like saying a machine has the capacity to do the thing that it's going to do or not the thing that it's going to do. It's an inane point because sure I can imagine a world in which something different may have happened, but the rules of this one exactly determined the outcome from the beginning. Even though we may have had what we feel like is choice, what we were going to choose is not actually free, so the idea that we sift through possible actions and "choose" a certain one is irrelevant. It's just what the brain does in order to perform its function. Our mind's consideration of its possible options is no different than pushing buttons on some piece of machinery. It's just stimulus, and it all adds up to a given response according to some set of rules, but few people would say the machine chose what to do.
Edited:
I understand the claim that free will can be considered just the capacity of the brain for decision making, but I consider that to be a sort of abuse of language, and brings up the problem of at what level of complexity a mind develops what we would call will.
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Yeah, I totally see what you're saying. I think it goes both ways though; saying we don't have free will could just as easily be called an abuse of language. I think it's more of an attitude thing. I've been reading a lot of existentialism lately and free will (in the scientific, capacity-to-make-decisions sense) is such a huge part of it, hence I'm leaning more to that side.
I'd never say we have free will without explaining exactly what I think it can realistically entail; that's for sure.
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We can do as we will, but we cannot will as we please.
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Since most people here are discussing this from a non-religious perspective, I'm debating whether I should really post my actual opinion. Oh, what the hell.
I believe there is a free will. Mainly because of religious bias, but even if there isn't free will, it's not going to change anything thinking about it.
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it's not like we have a choice.
I agree with you, posting your opinion is pretty pointless since your argument is basically "we have free will because magic"
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I believe don't really have that much free will, we are shaped by the people around us, who are shaped by the environment we are in. The loop means that even a single change in the area, environment or things we've been through becomes reshaped and moulded as it get's passed on from person to person. The further you get away from the location where it started, the more complex the result is. Imagine thousands of these 'ripples' happening every day.
That's free will, free will comes from our decision to react with our environment, and the people who shape you most.
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even if we do not have free will it does not matter as we are obviously unable to discern between having and not having free will, and so it doesnt matter to us because, simply, we are too dumb to tell the difference
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it says the same due to it being like a video
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Nice cop out
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what? atleast try to make an argument rather than just going hurr you disagree with me
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You copped out because you said that this argument doesn't matter to us. That's not the point of this argument and maybe somehow, through quantum physics or something, it theoretically could be important.
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I don't think his point is totally irrelevant. From our perspective we'll always feel a sense of freedom in our actions. Apparent physical determinacy goes over our heads because we're so epistemologically limited and can't begin to comprehend cause and effect across such a huge scale.
I'd say it's very philosophically interesting, but ultimately the question of free will has very little standing on most of our day-to-day existences in any meaningful way.
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There are many philosophies and ethics that are based off of free will. I don't get as angry at people because I understand that it's not their fault in the slightest. Understanding that there's no free will also gives you a deeper understanding of how people work.
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Our brain is governed by biochemistry, but what we are and what we think is just a result of different mixes of particles and atoms, but your brain does mix them freely which means it is in fact free will. It does have its limits of mixes, but who said you can't be free in a limited space?
Also, you have to define what free is, because it's only a concept, like time.
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It mixes them freely? So the chemicals in your brain mix with actual metaphysical freedom from the laws of physics?
Don't even
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I object, my (Christian) father always taught me that God is the only being with free will because he is the one who planned everything. I'm not the best at explaining these types of things.
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Agree totally agree, our biochemistry and all that shit (the chemicals in our brains) is what makes us so.. one of a kind. Definitely "survival of the fittest" if you want to put it all natural lol.
As for time.. it's a slow, podding thing but our timezone, as in our planets timezone, it's what we live on so it's a good concept, people have figured it all out with them scientists doing their research. And that's thanks to our brains and the chemicals.. again. It's pretty cool and fascinating I guess.
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But how could he judge beings he created by whether their actions are right or wrong in his eyes if he created them without the ability to choose?
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In my opinion the fact that two people act differently in the same situation partially proves that Free Will exists
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That's a question that I don't have the answer to.
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Well, what is free from the laws of physics? If there's nothing that is free from the laws of physics then free is only a concept as it doesn't really exists.
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But that's never happened. There have never been two exactly identical people in exactly identical circumstances.
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I know free will is very unlikely to exist in the form we think of as you are not determined to do something. But the brain is a very complex system, which is impossible to predict so we do have free will as we can't predict what you are going to do 100%.
My only problem with the idea of a complex determined system as the brain is why am I me? Which is a confusing question, and difficult to explain even the question, let alone possible answers so why bother, it doesn't mean much to me anyway.
Edited:
That is a approximation, and on everyday scales yes it is as close as you are going to get it. Your brain is a complex system with many neural pathways. A quantum event could easily affect the path of an electron and hence make you behave differently. This doesn't make free will more likely but does mean we could be affected by quantum events and the multiverse can work in some interpretations of it.
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Exactly.
If a supercomputer existed in the "start" of the existence itself and it had the ability to take in all the information in all of the existence and then calculate it's next move down to it's actual movement (fuck nanometers and nanoseconds, that's still inaccurate) then you would be able to predict the future.
Because everything started with whatever happened in the start. Because rock a moves to destination b the outcome is c. Any interaction is doomed to happen because the things that interact had a movement that would lead to it's happening. Everything is just a completely logical reaction to what previously happened. Everything happens because of everything else. The grass in Florida, the worker in China, the drug dealer in Berlin, everyone and everything will in the end impact your life because they impacted other peoples lives which affected other peoples lives which eventually leads to your life, and you do the exact same thing to everyone and everything else.
I don't think Quantum Physics is random at all. We just don't understand it or can't see the differences causing it to look random.
For some people a computer crashing seems random. In reality if you go deeper you'll see that it's all a logical reaction where some component or software caused another component or software to go haywire. In the same way what they observe is some seemingly identical movements and atoms doing the same things, but in reality they were very slightly different causing a completely different reaction because that's how they work.
Free will is the ability to make a choice on your own.
We don't have free will because we just follow what we logically would do. Because we are in a certain environment with/without certain people with whom we have certain information about which makes us think and act in such a way and etc etc. There are millions of factors playing in on your behaviour and thoughts every second because everything factors in on everything else. The environment affects the way you approach people, but the people also affect how you approach the environment, and in the environment there ar many things affecting your behaviour be it things like rocks, grass, litter, fences or tables, then there is the colours, the light or lack of it, the shapes and forms and EVERY FUCKING THING (which is impossible to list for a normal human being since there are many things on atom levels that have to be taken into account as well).
And basically what I'm trying to say here is that you have the illusion of free will, you have choices, but you are destinied to pick one specific choice because it's logical to you because of all the things around you as well as everything that has happened in the past make you think in such a way that you land on a logical conclusion that causes your answer. You could go right, but because of everything that is factored in you went left, and there was absolutely no way you would go right, it's simply impossible.
Nobody implied that DNA was the only thing that affected the concept of free will.
DNA is just one of the billions upon billions of things that affect you and destroys the concept of free will.
If you think DNA doesn't affect you then you forget that the DNA is the reason your body is as it is. Compare a cripples life towards your own and you'll know what I'm talking about. Or even easier, compare a girl to a boy.
Pretty much, but we don't start as a blank slate. The moment our brain is functional it starts and it is already affected by the DNA and instincts which allows it to live, act and learn.
HAHAHA.
Our brains have noticed that a rock is hard and when thrown at people it hurts. Thus throwing rocks became a weapon. The same process is applied to absolutely everything. Our brain observes and learns, what it has learned it applies to other things, and before you know it you have a spear and a hammer.
It is not free will, if anything it is proof that free will doesn't exist because the principle behind inventing things is using the very same process that makes up our lives. Having one thing lead to the other.
Free will is something that doesn't exist but should be treated as if it does. You chose your own set destiny. If you go with the attitude that "everything happens for a reason so I just won't give a fuck" you "chose" to make bad decisions. Free will is an important illusion that makes your destiny better.
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Yeah, not long after our brain had noticed and learned that a heavy stone-like object can hurt in a blunt force trauma fashion, it learned how to split an atom in a tube.
So all I can say is that our brains' observational and learning capabilities are almost like limitless, unlike the rest of the animals who clearly lack something in their brains that we don't. Due to that, we are more free to do shit in our constricted world, we even feel boredom so thank God to the freedom of choices to do things like uhh.. watch TV?
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Yeah, sure, we learned how to split atoms 3000 years before christ.
Oh wait, no we didn't.
The only reason human beings are making all these tools and shit is because we have thumbs. That's the only reason. We could grip things and use them in ways no other animal can. Thus we could make tools out of rocks and sticks.
But I'm really not going to argue with you at all if you are so retarded to bring in splitting atoms next to the discovery of rocks as weapons.
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Some species of monkey frequently use rocks to crush the brains of baby monkeys of nearby troops. It's quite vicious really.
The key reason humans are so intelligent compared to many animals is that we have adapted to use language in a representational fashion, and we have thumbs for object manipulation.
Solving problems in your mind, or insight learning, has been proven to exist in crows and probably exists in monkeys. Crows/ravens are one of the few species that is actually better off as a result of human expansion. There are plenty of amusing anecdotes and experiments. For example, some crows have taken to placing nuts on pedestrian crossings, letting a car run over the nut (thereby cracking it open), and then walking across on the 'walk' signal so they don't get run over themselves.
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Yes we do have something that the rest of the animal kingdom doesn't have, and that's the combination of thumbs, more cerebral cortex and complex social groups.
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Also humans have very little instinct because we have such a degree of neuroplasticity, that is, such a capacity to learn. That's why humans spend so many years in childhood, as opposed to a fly which lives a few days and runs almost entirely on instinctual behavior.
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And well, the reason we have managed to get a more complex and uniformed langage is because of our thumbs. Because thanks to them we can write and draw which made us able to form an alphabet that could be taught rather than rely on memory which eventually fades away or warps over time causing no consistency and makes communication outside of very basic and primitive things very hard.
You could basically say that most animals are bottlenecked by their body although there is a bit more to it.
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"We should allow child labor overseas ...the sweatshop is what is saving the 9 year old worker"
April 2007
6,864 Posts
A major fallacy that keeps being stated is that
X is made up of atoms
X's state can be predicted
Humans are made of atoms
Humans can be predicted
This is a syllogism in much the way that
A rock is not living
A rock is made out of atoms
A human is made of atoms
A human is not living
The issue is that there is a false predication that something acts in the same way despite it being from the same basic parts. It is affirming the consequent.
If the position of rocks can be predicted then human action be be predicted
The position of rocks can be predicted
Human action can be predicted
It is good to realize that the use of fallacy doesn't mean that free will exists, but it does mean that the argument doesn't work.
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