Another free will thread, but this time with a soul!

We are all affected by our enviroment. We wouldn't be or think the way we do without the particular system of experience we've had.
It's also known that our memories can be messed with physically. By poking and prodding in our brains, or through some stroke-like experiences, we can vastly alter our personalities and consciousness.

There's this idea of free will floating around, maybe you have heard of it, or experienced it. My question is how can we really have free will, if we are infinitely affected by our enviroment, by the physical world.

Christians say that everyone has a chance to accept Christ as their savior, all they have to do is CHOOSE to believe. Well, if this choice is affected by our enviroment, then it's not a free choice is it? You just have to be born lucky, in an enviroment conducive to the Christian thought-style.

So, if this free will is really FREE and equal, there has to exist some part of us that is not affected by the physical word that makes the decision. We have to have a 'soul'. In the past, when the soul is defined, people tend to think of ideas like 'character' and 'morals', that these are your soul's influence. But, if a person's character can be changed by science and medicine, it can't really be the soul can it?

So, either we must re-evaluate our idea of free will, or we must concede that there IS something extra-physical about us that affects us physically.

If the above is true, and our 'soul' can't be affected by our enviroment, then what is the point of evangelism?

Are there any flaws in my logic?

 

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well, if your soul could not be affected by the environment, then nobody would sin? and everyone would go to heaven? it would seem the sould would be a useless thing. not affected by anything, not responsible for anything, so, hence, not useful and probably nonexistent

 

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If there is no soul, then we can only think of 'free will' as an idea, as an aspiration. We are forever affected by our conditioning and are biased in every choice we make. What's to say that choice isn't just the product of billions of tiny causes that make up our human body and mind.

 

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That is exactly what choice is. There's no denying that IMO.

 

(I felt, for the first time more obviously, that I am becoming an old member of this forum ...)


This thing with "free will" has everything to do with

1. the institute of personal responsibility,
2. our understanding of our own individuality

and really NOTHING to do with that physiological mumbo jumbo some use to "prove" how we either have or don't have "free will".


At 1: The institute of personal responsibility

In order to apply the rules and to sanction their tresspassing, we say that each individual acts on his own (sometimes forced, influenced etc, but that's beside the point here). Free will is there to make personal responsibility a valid and executable institute. This is necessary, as murderers must be punished and heroes hailed, otherwise a society crumbles as it has demonstrated that it has no values and no rules.


At 2: Our understanding of our own individuality

NOBODY FELL FROM THE MOON. Since we are all born of people and grew up in some sort of society, we see that we indeed aren't oh so extraspecial as we might be if we fell from the Moon. But this not being oh so extraspecial DOES NOT mean that we have no free will, or that we lack individuality.

Thinking, "Oh, I was born in this and this society, went to these schools, read these books etc. etc -- I am so not special, I so do not have free will" is pathetic jabbering of those KNOWING that they COULD stand up for themselves, yet are TOO AFRAID to do it.


Everyone has free will; the difference is whether one admits it to oneself, and whether one acts in the name of his own free will -- or not.

Note that saying things like, "But if I truly had free will, then I could move mountains" is self-possessed blather of an egomaniac with too much time on his hands.

Next time someone complains about "free will" I'll go to him and kick him black and blue, bloody making him see what free will is.

Ciao.

 

No, that is exactly the point, because all your actions are influenced all the time. And it's only the vast, vast, vast complexity of causality that makes the illusion of something "free" about our will.

Exactly, too afraid because of the influence.

As for the punished murderer and the hailed hero, that's just consequences that should be void of judgement, were one to perceive and comprehend the concept of causality.

Let me pose this question: What is exactly the "free" in free will? If our actions can be made outside of influence then what makes us take certain decisions? Pure randomness? Chaos? What?

 

The whole argument is a bit like deciding how much pressure water exerts.

It depends how deep you wish to go, and at a certain depth you leave Marianna Trough and the discussion becomes purely hypothetical and nonsensical. We can't see the equation and we never will, because we can't be objective - we're part of it. As Rosa said: free will only has any relevance with *you*, *now*. Take responsibility for who you are, instead of being a leaf on the philsophical evolutionary wind. Being afraid of too much influence is an influence itself.

Before looking for an answer outside yourself, answer this for yourself: which nature do you nurture?

 

My guess the answer will be similar to the answer to this: how much freedom does your body have from your mind?

 

1. Being influenced is the default state for everybody. If we are to live in a society, or live anywhere for that matter, we will be influenced. It is therefore pointless to aspire a state where we would not be influenced.

2. The self is a construct, and so is free will. It all depends on how much value you put in yourself and your understanding of free will.

3. Whether free will is an illusion or not, is beside the point. We act on it, and we have personal responsibility. As such, free will is real in effect, and it doesn't matter if sub specie aeternitatis/totalitatis we don't have free will: we do not experience ourselves sub specie aeternitatis/totalitatis, but sub specie specialis.

4. Do note that if there would be no influence from the outside, we'd quite literally fall apart.

What influence? People are simply afraid to admit that they do have power; people are afraid to hope and to act on this hope.

If one acts, one's actions have consequences. One cannot act without consequences. Yet it seems that you are pursuing the idea of acting without consequences.

Having faith in one's own thinking and acting.

Having free will does not mean that one makes one's actions "outside of influence of others", that would be impossible anyway.
I prefer to see free will simply as a statement of taking responsibility for your choices -- as opposed to trying to make others, or society be responsible for your doings.

In your head: Who else is there but you? Who else is there behind your eyes, reading this -- but you? When you are eating your breakfast: Who else is eating it but you?

All you do, *you* do. This is your free will.

 

I figured this "body" vs. "mind" distinction is artificial, and gave it up. Seeing oneself as a whole is much more practical.

 

Hear, hear!

 

Correct; you cannot not be influenced. Passive influence is nonetheless influence.

In other words free will is subjective to perception.

Again the same.

Not necessarily, depends on the mind, but not really the issue here.

The influence that gave them that fear.

You got that wrong; consequence is inevitable. It's the realization of consequence void of judgement when understanding that there is no free will.

That only implies individual will, not free will.

Quite right, and without asking "so what then?" we move on:

Without free will there is no choice hence no responsibility, your own or otherwise. There is only consequence.

No, that is me inside holistic causality.

 

Jubatus,

Where exactly is the problem?

 

It's in the simplicity of perceiving it once you acquire it, but it's evidently frustratingly hard making other people see it. Their conditioning into this dogmatic conviction of a free will is hard to crack; I suppose it is deeply rooted in their world view. I can picture it in religious upbringing:

"Now my son, since God gave us free will, you are responsible for your actions and you will answer for them to our Lord, so you'd better behave and bla bla bla yada yada!"

And 8-year old little Peter has never had a chance to acquire the rational, critical sense to question this "free will" his daddy babbles on about, so after having heard it for the 1,001st time it's simply just anchored to his point of view as a static, natural piece of unquestioned acceptance.

Now, mind you, it need not be a religious upbringing; there's plenty of societal dogma too.

Now, little Peter must of course face the consequences of his actions but with the understanding that he is not at fault for a wrongful one, because it was the only action (or inaction) he could possibly take - it was inevitable. It irritates me every time those are pro-"free will" takes for granted that I by non-existence of guilt mean that no one should be punished for crime.

 

I'm not sure I understand, so let me rephrase and add some examples:
Your concern is with those actions that are perceived as "inevitable" -- and some claim that in those cases, there is no personal responsibility (and thus also no free will).
I don't believe that there really are many "inevitable" actions, I cannot think of many situations where there wouldn't be at least one other option. Central here is, that some options are not acceptable or are not feasible, but they are not impossible -- thus, a certain action is not inevitable. When choosing in such situations, it all comes to feasibility calculations, and sometimes something called "instinct". (But since there is no clear definition where instinctive action ends and conscious begins, I see no point in distinguishing them -- a person did something, and that's it.)

Yes, it is said sometimes: "He was drunk and driving, he couldn't control the car, so he hit a pedestrian and killed him. It isn't really the driver's fault." -- which is just gross, but frequent.

This is more interesting: "The brakes didn't work, the driver couldn't control the car, so he hit a pedestrian and killed him. It really isn't the driver's fault, he couldn't act on his free will."
Or, this happened to my father: A woman threw herself in front of his car, and died instantly. Was it my father's fault? Did he want to kill her? Should he go to prison?

This is the kind of situations where free will becomes a rather perplexing issue.
We have free will in what we do, but so do others; and some things we simply have no control over, it's "higher power" (you're on your way to an exam, and the bus breaks down, and you're too late). We have free will over what we do, but we have little influence on what others do as a result of their free will, or on uncontrollable events.

But this is actually similar to us having no control over the fact that we are made of carbon, oxygen, water etc. etc. -- it is beyond our choice, we don't have the "free will" to choose that our body should not contain any water, for example. But it does, and we cannot do as if it doesn't -- we must drink, or we'd die.
We have responsibilities that are beyond our choice.


I think this could get really interesting, I'm looking forward.

 

Not "those actions..." - All actions are inevitable.

That's the illusion I'm talking about, the believe that met with options you could go either way. But the way you do go was the inevitable one all along. There are myriads of influence factors behind each such decision, from words of advice you remember, to awareness of social norms and down to subconscious workings of the mind stemming from past experiences, experiences of which some were only absorbed subconsciously themselves. Then you have timing, what mood you are in, whether or not you're under pressure, being observed, and the prospect of others never knowing what you do at that moment. And all that is just scratching the surface of the matter, but all these factors join together into influencing you to one unavoidable decision.

This doesn't describe a conscious decision of hitting a pedestrian.

He couldn't avoid hitting him - period.

Again, not his conscious decision of hitting her.

This has been addressed in my 2nd paragraph.

You're simply describing what does not come to us as options.

-----

You're of the common, widespread oppinion that options = choices. But then please explain what about choice is free. For example, if you were presented 10 balls lying before you and asked to "choose" one, and given that you are equally impartial to all balls when it comes to position, you would suggest that resetting the event of your choosing a 1,000 times in time would result in you "choosing" either ball approximately 100 times each, yes, as opposed to the same ball every time? (And in this little experiment we disregard the option of "choosing" no ball.)

If you agree, then what we have is randomness.

If you disagree, then what we have is inevitability.

I see no romantic gray area in-between where lies "free will".

 

I think it might relate to the parametric/strategic distinction, but I agree. That, to me, is the answer to free will: we can't remove ourselves from an environment in which "will" operates long enough to examine its nature in isolation - the limitations and unlimitations of it.

We can't remove our "bodies" from our "minds" because the one is the other, for all practical purposes. But we can imagine them separate, because we can imagine other bodies and other minds - and we know that a lot of what our bodies do is involuntary. We don't will our hearts to beat or stop beating. Are our hearts not free?

What we have is (1) Will, and (2) The freedom to exercise (1). But as CS Lewis said, it's an asymmetrical relationship: "Nature is not related to reason as reason is to nature." Freedom is not related to will as will is to freedom. Will and reason can interfere with nature, but nature and freedom can't interfere with will and reason. It's what gives us a self. When freedom interferes with the self... forgetting just one heartbeat will be enough to rob you of the only freedom you really have: to be a living human being.

You're free to the extent that you're free. "Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains", but "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee". Everything influences you, but it's up to you how you let it influence your decisions. Determinism itself is powerless to change who you are, or have come to be, because you exert your own influence on your circumstances as well. If you give up making decisions, you break the equilibrium, likewise if you resist all influence.

You are a boat on the water, but just because the ocean looks the same everywhere that doesn't mean you should throw your oars overboard thinking all directions are the same. They aren't.

 

And this "it's up to me", what is that? Is it some inner core that is beyond influence? Nothing is beyond influence. And I ask again: If our decisions are not inevitable through countless sources of both conscious and subconscious influence, and if they're not the products of pure randomness, then what? What is that that lies between holistic causality and chaos that you call free will?

We agree in as much as determinism, when viewed correctly, should have absolutely no bearing on your actions. Determinism like solipsism are merely observations you come to comprehend then move on.

You cannot not make decisions; passiveness is a decision too. And resisting influence is an influenced decision too.

This has already been addressed, but the contemplation of determinism could result in the throwing away of one's oars - to each his own.

 

Okay, don't have a hissy fit.

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I see your point. I'm glad you brought this up, I was thinking of starting a thread on choice anyway.

Yes, eventually, it looks as if there is no free will, no real options.
Let's say I have 10 summer dresses, and I have to choose one to wear to the party. It has to be casual and easily washable -- this eliminates 5 dresses, for five are very fancy. The dress for that party also has to be green -- this eliminates 8, as I have only two green dresses. Only one of the green dresses is also casual -- so that's the one I'll wear.

Did choosing actually take place or not?

You could say that it didn't -- as only one dress met the requirements, and that was clear in advance. -- But was it really clear in advance?

The objective reality of me having 10 dresses and the party requirements (green + casual) was there before I started thinking about which dress to wear. Does this annihilate the act of choosing? I don't think so. For it has taken me a while, if oly a few seconds, to recognize this objective reality and the options in it. I didn't instantly and without any thought decide which dress to take.

I could also take some other dress, which would not meet the requirements -- in that case, I would not recognize the objective reality, and make an ill choice.


Your example with the balls is somewhat foreign to practical everyday life -- let's take a very common phenomenon of "choice" -- "my favourite colour". I say that my favourite colour is pink. Have I consciously chosen it? Not really. Pink just so happens to correspond to a long line of reasons, influences etc. etc. -- in short: pink is my preference.

Now, to go into what's behind preferences is to address a level of our personalities on which we usually do not experience ourselves. Technically, my "choice" of pink could be random or inevitable -- but this is beside the point, as I usually do not experience myself on the level of justifying my preferences. We say that preferences just are.

What is free about choice is that we usually do not experience ourselves on the level of justifying our preferences. We do not experience objective reality in its fullness -- this would be absurd and overwhelming. Instead, we live in a mental construct that gives us the impression of having free will; and this very construct also enables us to act in a certain way.

Knowing that we'll die anyway and that there's eventually no rationally justifiable meaning or purpose to life -- all our actions are futile and in vain, aren't they?
But we still act! We must be awfully irrational then ...

I don't see free will as lying in-between a "romantic gray area" -- that is awfully mechanicistic.
I find it feasible to understand free will as a matter of acknowledging that aforementioned mental construct as individualistic, worthy and capable of actions.

Trying to logically justify free will is much the same as analyzing the molecular structure of a spoon, and then based on this analysis trying to define what the spoon is for.

***

In order for an entity to perceive itself either as free or as not free, this entity must first exist -- and this entity cannot choose to make itself existent. There are things that are beyond anything that we could consider our conscious choice, and this indeed seems to say that we do not have free will. But I think that such a mechanicistic view simply is not appropriate, neither is it feasible.

 

The brain contains raw infomation, reflexes, and some type of rational processing. But the brain is not responsible for the free willed decisions that the soul makes.

The soul is able to process infomation from the physical world, but I don't think we are infinitely affected by our environment.

That's not entirely so. Ignoring sthe choice not to see God, the choice of loving God can be only made when one is able to see God.

Correct. But the soul is sometimes is affected by the physical world by the soul allowing itself to be affected; this is usually a gradual process. Thus I can't really say whether medicine could change someone soul. If someone's soul is depressed because they have allowed their biochemicals to make their soul depressed, then changing the chemical makeup in brain might change their perspective.