What is your viewpoint on this hotly debated topic, are you a realist or a "religionist" or a combination of both.

Freewill is a fraud.

/thread.

Well no one can truly be a realists for the reality we perceive is limited by our imperfect senses. Someone who practices religion forgoes this notion and claim we can know the ultimate truth despite our limited brain capacity compounded by books written by men thousands of years ago with knowledge inferior to our current knowledge.

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It's obviously prestidigitation, not predestination...

Somewhere in between.

Does the flap of a butterflys wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?

im talking from the vantage point of human senses, im not calling them perfect

heres somthing for you to think on, and i would like to hear your thoughts. freewill is the ability for us to think and act based on our likes and dislikes, our perception of the situation, and perception of how we should act based on that situation. Let me give you an example. A man murders a child and we ask ourselves why did he commit that act? We come to the conclusion in our minds that, that man did the action based on freewill, he had the ability not to commit the offense but did so willingly, he acted based on his own "freewill". But why was it him in that mindframe and not someone else? Why was he born with the instinct to kill senselessly and not the next person?

I will assert a predestined outcome. Consider the philosophical question of whether God could have or should have made Creation work differently. Neither God nor Nature are extraneous: we are as we are because that is what the Universe determines. Look at the Universe itself as a single event and the notion of predestiny becomes apparent. Any freeze-frame you take from within the event is such that whatever you see is exactly whatever you are supposed to see. That is, if things were supposed to be different, they would be.

As long as a cosmic balancing act is maintained, yes, there are variable outcomes within applicable parameters, but the notion of predestiny falls apart when we realize that calculating the future requires far more factors than our brains are capable of quantifying. We haven't the capacity to even write the equation for a computer to crunch.

In the moment you choose, perhaps it seems like free will, but retrospect will show clearly how limited the choice really is.

From what I know personally and what I know from a lot of wise people I would say we have freewill at the very least to some degree, even people who seem to have predicted future events say that it is not 100% positive because of our freewill and they are warning us so that we might change for the better.

A combintion of both. God (the universe, what ever you want to call it) puts opportunities befor us, what we choose to do with it is our free will.

Only a new-born infant, less than a few minutes old, has "free will".

Our social training and experiences in the world will always determine our actions. I.e., you learn things that you shouldn't do, thus are swayed by those teachings and experiences ....so decisions are not really "your" decisions, but are determined by other outside forces.

Baron Max

Only a new-born infant, less than a few minutes old, has "free will".

Shame it can't control it's actions. :itold:

I have freewill, not that what I do does not have a lot of things that cause it but my freewill can be taken away so I must have it.

Shame it can't control it's actions.

It is a shame. But by the same token, it has "free will", don't it? Perfectly "free will".

Baron Max

I have freewill, ...

If you know anything at all about "right n' wrong" or "good n' bad", then you don't have free will. Those very teachings control most of what we do and say. The only way you can have free will is if you don't know anything!

...but my freewill can be taken away so I must have it.

How can anyone or anything take away what you don't have?

Baron Max

Freewill is like Newtons first law; a body in motion will tend to remain in that state of motion unless acted upon by an external force.

Predestination relegates the external force to the supernatural.

human action is probabilistic, not deterministic. The illusion of free will comes from the constant neuronal roll of the die. It takes 4 firings to build an action potential of some particular neuron. But that last firing wasn't strong enough. Didn't count. So that dendrite is sitting at 3, waiting for another. And the difference between a registered firing from a neighboring axon can be nanovolts. Just a handful of chemicals. Down to the quantum level where random shakes upset the balance.

Skinner's dream of a knowable brain-state will never be realized. 4 firings needed in the span of a microsecond, or no action. The fourth comes right at the cutoff point, firing or no? It is like balancing a razor on its edge, perfectly poised in a vacuum, and wagering on which way it will fall. It is brownian motion on an atomic scale which determines. And how can that be deterministic?

Can you do anything with this illusion of free will? No. Only those things which have non-zero probability. When I get cut off in traffic, there is a 3% chance that I will flip that person off. A 72% chance that I will do nothing. A 25% chance that I will honk my horn. And these percentages are not fixed. They rely on what sort of day that I have had. There is a 0% chance that I will overtake and cut the driver off, because the back of my truck is currently loaded with topsoil. If I wasn't listening to my jazz album, the 3% would be 18%. And there are those action potentials, balancing on edge like so many razors in a vacuum.

Sometimes we surprise ourselves, and free will seems certain. Most of the time, we are automatons, responding to stimuli in our environment with all of the false complexity of an anthill.

"Originally posted by Barron Max
How can anyone or anything take away what you don't have?"

Say I wanted to choose something, and someone or something else makes it impossible to make this choice , my freewill is gone because I can not choose what I would like.

Only a new-born infant, less than a few minutes old, has "free will".

Our social training and experiences in the world will always determine our actions. I.e., you learn things that you shouldn't do, thus are swayed by those teachings and experiences ....so decisions are not really "your" decisions, but are determined by other outside forces.

Our actions are influenced by outside forces - not determined.
You always have the choice to act against whatever conditioning may otherwise predict.

If you know anything at all about "right n' wrong" or "good n' bad", then you don't have free will. Those very teachings control most of what we do and say. The only way you can have free will is if you don't know anything!

So, in other words, if you know something is wrong, then it is impossible for you to do it?

“ Originally Posted by Baron Max
If you know anything at all about "right n' wrong" or "good n' bad", then you don't have free will. Those very teachings control most of what we do and say. The only way you can have free will is if you don't know anything! ”

"Originally posted by one raven
So, in other words, if you know something is wrong, then it is impossible for you to do it?"

Kendall-lots of people know something is wrong and they still do it because they think they can get away with it!

lots of people know something is wrong and they still do it because they think they can get away with it!
That is certainly their choice.

If any single thing is pre-determined, then every single thing must be pre-determined.

It is a tough question, I know that our choices can be altered, we can have many things happen to us and cause us to do things that we would never do normally and alter the choice we would have made.

There are varying degrees of freewill and predestination. A locus of energy transfer (such as yourself, or the sun) has a certain degree of free-will depending on its power in relation to all things. The more powerful that locus becomes, the less free-will it has.

It is a shame. But by the same token, it has "free will", don't it? Perfectly "free will".

Baron Max

How can it have free will if it can't act upon it?

Our actions are influenced by outside forces - not determined. You always have the choice to act against whatever conditioning may otherwise predict.

Of course. But just being influenced is enough to take away the ideals of "free" will. If it were "free" will, one would do it if they wanted to ...without thought to the consequences. See? It ain't "free" will ...it's "influenced will".

So, in other words, if you know something is wrong, then it is impossible for you to do it?

Huh? Geez, Raven, now ye're starting to sound like Baron Max, for god's sake! :D

Baron Max

How can it have free will if it can't act upon it?

Does "free will" mean that you have to act? Or can the infant have "free will" but still do nothing if it chooses?

I don't think the term "free will" is indicative of action, only the "will" to act if it so chooses.

Baron Max

If any single thing is pre-determined, then every single thing must be pre-determined.

To argue against "free will" does not mean that one acknowledges "pre-determination". I think that's just a way for folks to try to argue their way out of the argument! ...throw in the god-issue. Which is sorta' like people throwing out the racism issue ...it attempts to sway people from the actual argument or discussion.

Our acts, even out thoughts, are influenced by everything that has every happened to us and everything that we've ever learned. That alone should be enough to convince y'all that there's no such thing as "free will" (except perhaps a one-minute old infant?).

Baron Max

heres somthing for you to think on, and i would like to hear your thoughts. freewill is the ability for us to think and act based on our likes and dislikes, our perception of the situation, and perception of how we should act based on that situation. Let me give you an example. A man murders a child and we ask ourselves why did he commit that act? We come to the conclusion in our minds that, that man did the action based on freewill, he had the ability not to commit the offense but did so willingly, he acted based on his own "freewill". But why was it him in that mindframe and not someone else? Why was he born with the instinct to kill senselessly and not the next person?
obviously we have free will,
however IF ALL KNOWING god existed your free will would just be ilusion as everything would be predestined

www.geocities.com/inquisitive79/vindicate.html

obviously we have free will, ....

On what do you base that assertion?

Baron Max

Move this to the philosophy section or religion ssection, moderators.

Ive been busy all day so i havent had a chance to put my 100 billion cents into the respones but im working on it, working for 6am to 9pm ends up being a very very long day.

To argue against "free will" does not mean that one acknowledges "pre-determination". I think that's just a way for folks to try to argue their way out of the argument! ...throw in the god-issue. Which is sorta' like people throwing out the racism issue ...it attempts to sway people from the actual argument or discussion.

Our acts, even out thoughts, are influenced by everything that has every happened to us and everything that we've ever learned. That alone should be enough to convince y'all that there's no such thing as "free will" (except perhaps a one-minute old infant?).

Baron Max

For the most part I agree with you. But there is that certain bit of indeterminancy that remains in human actions that is just enough to make you wonder if we really do have free-will. That certain unknown action that a person might take in the face of extreme circumstances. I like to think that it ties into the whole quantum state of things--that at some level or in some situations the actions brought about by the human mind are directly dependant upon a single quantum wave collapse; the straw that breaks the camel's back, though if it were any other straw it wouldn't have.

This also explains why there is no (in the practical sense) predetermination. It seems likely, though that any force as powerful (or knowledgable) as the universe itself would be able to predict any events within the universe. So perhaps predetermination is simply another subjective aspect of our universe.

Does "free will" mean that you have to act? Or can the infant have "free will" but still do nothing if it chooses?

I don't think the term "free will" is indicative of action, only the "will" to act if it so chooses.

Baron Max

How can you have will to act if you cannot will it.

How can you have will to act if you cannot will it.

You can "will" it, but every single "will" is influenced by what we've learned or been taught in out lives.

Few, if any, of us act without thinking about the consequences ...even in dire, extreme conditions. That thinking process is made possible by what we've been taught/learned ...it's like a process of "IF:THEN". Without the "then" part, deciding what to do would be almost impossible for us ...even if the "then" part was made up of interpolations based on past experiences.

The reason we don't just walk down the street shitting in our pants whenever the urge strikes us is because we've been taught differently. And even if not directly taught, the shit running down our legs and drying and stinking is enough to teach us that such "free will" is not free afterall. :D

I don't believe that any action is free of consideration of the consequences of that act. And those consequences, even if only estimated, make the decisions dependent on our knowledge ...ie., not free!

Baron Max

Huh? Geez, Raven, now ye're starting to sound like Baron Max, for god's sake! :D

A man's gotta aspire to something. :D

To argue against "free will" does not mean that one acknowledges "pre-determination".
I can see where you are coming from, but I disagree.
You have one or the other.
Either you have the ability to make decisions that will affect you, or you do not.
Of course you are influenced.
You are influenced from all directions in all moments, but that does not mean you do not have the ability to choose.

But there is that certain bit of indeterminancy that remains in human actions that is just enough to make you wonder if we really do have free-will. That certain unknown action that a person might take in the face of extreme circumstances.

What? Because Joe does something differnt to Mike in the same extreme sitution is proof that there's free will???? All it means is that the two learned different things over their lives. Joe learned to quickly get the fuck out of the way ...while Mike learned to first stop and gather up all the available info, process it all, THEN act. Don't prove shit about free will.

...are directly dependant upon a single quantum wave collapse

Quantum wave? Is that a new kind of Tex-Mex food or something?? What the fuck are you talking about? Or are you just using those high-sounding terms to make someone think that you know something? Or you just watched too much Star Trek?

Baron Max

You have one or the other. Either you have the ability to make decisions that will affect you, or you do not.

No, that's a silly way to view it, Raven. If someone simply stops deciding anything, someone or something else willl decide it for them. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with pre-determination. It's just one person nudging another into action of some kind, that's all. Even if the person stood there until he died, someone else would not like the stink of his rotting corpse and would haul it off. But that ain't go nothin' to do with pre-determination.

You are influenced from all directions in all moments, but that does not mean you do not have the ability to choose.

Of course we choose actions. But in being influenced as we are, and as you admit, means that someone or something else HELPED us choose ....and thus our will is NOT "free". It's influenced ...like "control" of sorts.

Baron Max

Move this to the philosophy section or religion ssection, moderators.
I think you'll find in the Archives of the Philosophy forum is countless threads that already discuss this topic, I suppose you could suggest it was... "predestined to reoccur".

As for the subject... originally I theorised into the universe being ruled by Causality where only an outside observer would have a feeling of what freewill would actually be like, however further investigation concluded that perhaps every outside observer would themselves be observed from the outside to, making any move they make just as predestined as the one the viewed.

I think there are some depictions within a religion/philosophy over how people are trapped with one or other iteration of circle/cycle.

A further theory I looked at was that if the universe plays out with no deviation, that could only be true for those things with no intelligence that are inanimate, i.e. a Rock.

The atoms that make that rock exist obviously exist there and not somewhere else in the universe. So a Rock is a Rock.

However when you apply a Living entity with the capacity to think logically and be dictated to emotionally, it can be suggested a cause for paradoxes within the universe.

The living entity might "Feel" or "Decide" to pick that rock up and hurl it a distance. Okay there is physics applied to the rocks trajectory, but what physics decided the rocks fate?

You could suggest perhaps that entity was just a puppet playing out the universes staged event for displacing that rock from where it once rested, however I don't believe that to be completely accurate.

The probability waveform matrix of sub-atomics suggests the capacity for paradoxes to be "Compensated" for, since a rock makes no decision it would suggest that it's probability matrix will be different to that of a rock that was thrown by someone that made a decision to throw it. I guess you could suggest that there is potential alterations sub-atomically from "Freewill" existing. However all of this is merely theory, although testable under the right conditions.

Baron,
I think we agree on the concepts, but disagree on the terms.

Baron, I think we agree on the concepts, but disagree on the terms.

Which terms?

Baron Max

Mainly the one term, "free will" and what to refer to it as.
How about "self-determination", or do you think that will not work either, because otehr influences "help" you determine, so you are not doing it all by yourself?

How about "self-determination", or do you think that will not work either, because other influences "help" you determine, so you are not doing it all by yourself?

Self-determination is, to me, a much preferable term than "free will" simply because it can and does recognize the outside influences. I.e., a person knowledgeable about drugs and their effects on the body might not just take the drug offered by his buddy ....yet a fool might take it simply because his buddy told him it was great. See?

Outside influences are much, much more important in our lives than we like to believe. People, especially young people, want soooo much to believe that they're really in control of their own lives, their own actions .....and yet most are highly influenced by their peers (but they won't admit it!).

Baron Max

I can agree with that, Baron.

You can "will" it, but every single "will" is influenced by what we've learned or been taught in out lives.

You were talking about a baby less than a few minutes old.

Disappeared in a time warp.

So, we are influenced in our actions, but have the ability to choose among the options available to us.
In other words, what I have been saying.
Correct?
Or did I misunderstand you?

Free will exists in the sense that imagination exists: on an illusory plane of helpful dialectical constructs. In practise, however, consequences are yet further causes, and, not being sentient, are utterly unconcerned with our ability or willingness to forecast them.

If one were to enter a dark room, one could either switch the light-switch 'on' or leave it off. One could not, however, do both simultaneously.

That every analogous scenario demands the same flowchart of apparent decisions indicates that no individual one may be made without any conscious or unconscious regard for all those that preceded it; it is therefore a slave to historical influences. Indeed, to external ones too, which, from moment to moment, are not any more receptive to instantaneous and corrective calibration to one's ideals than is the past. Of course, one's ideals, too, are hopelessly entwined in this system, and thus even the much-invoked 'brain in a jar' would not be any intellectually freer than we 'imagine' (QED) ourselves to be.

So, we are influenced in our actions, but have the ability to choose among the options available to us.
In other words, what I have been saying.
Correct?
Or did I misunderstand you?

Yes, to your latter question.

We have only the illusion of 'options'. The one we ultimately will choose is pre-determined by the totality of our historical and external circumstances. In this sense nothing is minutiae, only misunderstood.

If a tree falls in the middle of a wild forest, the universe will never be quite the same, whether anyone hears or cares or not. What is equally interesting is that the tree did not fall in a vacuum, nor did it 'choose' to fall: it was felled by its history and environment.

What? Because Joe does something differnt to Mike in the same extreme sitution is proof that there's free will???? All it means is that the two learned different things over their lives. Joe learned to quickly get the fuck out of the way ...while Mike learned to first stop and gather up all the available info, process it all, THEN act. Don't prove shit about free will.

Quantum wave? Is that a new kind of Tex-Mex food or something?? What the fuck are you talking about? Or are you just using those high-sounding terms to make someone think that you know something? Or you just watched too much Star Trek?

Baron Max
Come on Baron, you know I'm smarter than that. Just cause you feel like you have to put down every 12 year old who thinks he's figured out the answer to everything doesn't mean that everyone who disagrees with you is one of 'em.

I'm not basing this on the fact that we all do something different under pressure. I'm basing it on the fact that, at times, we all do things wildly unpredictable compared to ourselves. Like maybe Mike has learned to gather all the info before acting, but in one particular circumstance he, for no immediate reason surrounding him, impulsively acts on an unthought whim, as if the decision were made in his mind without any outside info.

And I at least have some idea what I am talking about, I do not just spout out words hoping that someone will think it sounds cool. I have no desire to be 'cool'. At least theoretically, every event is traced to individual quantum wave collapses--the point at which the unpredictable wave of particle movement becomes tracable once observed. After the collapse of a quantum wave, the result becomes observable, but only after. This process is at best a probability, but mostly just chaotic. I am saying that at some basic level, our mental processes are tied directly to this such that in times of heavy and immediate stress, our brain acts on the product of a chaotic wave collapse. If this confuses you, I am sorry.

That every analogous scenario demands the same flowchart of apparent decisions indicates that no individual one may be made without any conscious or unconscious regard for all those that preceded it; it is therefore a slave to historical influences.
Non sequitur.
You have shown how we are inflenced by our surroundings - not enslaved by them.

We have only the illusion of 'options'. The one we ultimately will choose is pre-determined by the totality of our historical and external circumstances. In this sense nothing is minutiae, only misunderstood.
I'm not convinced at all.
Influenced is not the same as controlled.
Life is a series of interconnected coincidences all created by the choices you make, the self-determination of others and the world around you.

If a tree falls in the middle of a wild forest, the universe will never be quite the same, whether anyone hears or cares or not. What is equally interesting is that the tree did not fall in a vacuum, nor did it 'choose' to fall: it was felled by its history and environment.
We, on the other hand, are not trees.
We can choose to chop a tree down if we wish.

Non sequitur.
You have shown how we are inflenced by our surroundings - not enslaved by them...
Influenced is not the same as controlled.
Life is a series of interconnected coincidences all created by the choices you make, the self-determination of others and the world around you.
We can choose to chop a tree down if we wish.

As Oscar Wilde made Lord Henry Wotton say, 'All influence is corrupting'. History and environment serve up banquets of apparent choices. These choices are mutually-exclusive, as they may not be engaged simultaneously. One is compelled to select one 'choice' over another. The route of this compulsion is owed entirely to the exquisitely precise state of one's mind at that moment.

It is wise to pause and consider the vast complexity of the mind before proceeding.

The state of one's mind at any given moment is due to an unrelenting ocean of past of events, both internal and external. Each new event, in turn, falls heir to predicating some portion of future action and thought - just as the unforgettable suffering that Aeschylus wrote of falling 'drop by drop upon the heart'.

'Free will' is a useful heuristic in day-to-day life, as it gives us a framework wherein to feign an understanding of ourselves and the motives of others. It permits pride and blame, and assists, quite rationally, in the persistent suppression of ancient death anxieties a la Otto Rank and his disciples.

Quomodo sedet sola civitas - vanity of vanities, all is vanity. The author of Ecclesiastes, and his Vulgate scribe, both lost to the fog of time, were both operating quite well-cemented into the river thereof.

As are we.

So, we are influenced in our actions, but have the ability to choose among the options available to us.

Yes, but that's not the same thing as "free will". The only way that one can actually and truly be free to choose between the options is to be totally ignorant of the options themselves ...as well as the consequences! Otherwise, his choice is is/will be "influenced" ...which is the same as saying "not free"!

And please note that it's virtually impossible for a grown person to be totally ignorant of acts or of the consequences ....even if only by logical reasoning based on some similar act. And again, it ain't "free will", it's "influenced will".

Have I made myself clear yet? I guess a simple way of saying it is ...knowledge itself prevents "free will". A person with no brain might, just might, have "free will" ...but I doubt it.

Baron Max

As Oscar Wilde made Lord Henry Wotton say, 'All influence is corrupting'. History and environment serve up banquets of apparent choices. These choices are mutually-exclusive, as they may not be engaged simultaneously. One is compelled to select one 'choice' over another. The route of this compulsion is owed entirely to the exquisitely precise state of one's mind at that moment.
...
I don't think you adequately supported your assertion that we are compelled to follow a specific course of action, as opposed to openly selecting from the available array of options.