Do we have free will or is everything predestined?

I believe in a world ruled by the principals of science there is no room for free will. Everything is a function of our physical universe and the rules that govern such. Am I wrong? If so why?

 

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Everything is predestined to our free will...Imagine this: a seed has dna information for a tree that will grow from that seed...a seed is so finally tuned that it is to say it will grow that exact tree for sure that is within it...however that is not such since there are other factors influencing the seed and thus the result as a tree. Same with us, even though the future is predetermined and finally tuned to be our free will...there are many possibilities/probabilities of this future happening, making it truly a free will to us.

* Everything is predestined/predetermined...however it is predestined to be what our free will, would be causing us to do...the result is the same as having free will

* There are many realities of predetermined actions/occurances...these realities are the result of chaos within the system introduced by the chaos of the environment in which we are in...the chaos allows true free will to exist since the probabilities of the predetermined events changes once in a while based on the chaotic occurances within the environment...making it true free will for us. A free will determined by the environment chaos'...(our free will is that of the surroundings'...or everyone else's free will...thus we are the same entities)

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Thanks Dragon, interesting answer. But i am not sure I am convinced.

 

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look into quantum world physics/interactions

and see what I mean

 

Nope. I don't think we have free will. I don't know that everything is predestined, but even if it is not, that doesn't mean that we are free.

I think everything we see, perceive, think and do are the results of our brain, which is a lump of fat and protein, and which has a mass, weight, volume, density, etc. Whatever happens to that lump of fat and protein is going to affect us. The matter that the brain is made of is no less subject to the laws of physics than a rock or tree, or anything. In comes sensory information through the eyes, nose, ears, skin, or whatever. That information gets processed through the brain, and then out come the outputs, which we see as decisions or autonomic responses (notice that when there is no conscious thinking going on, the output of the brain's work can be called an autonomic response, whereas otherwise it is thinking and yet what is so entirely different physically between conscious and unconscious brain work?) What you have are inputs, a processing center and outputs. All of which must strictly adhere to the laws of physics and can't be said to do any "deciding," unless in the metaphorical sense in which we say about our desktops "Give it some time, it's thinking/deciding!"

So what happens when you "decide" to go for a bike ride in the park with a friend? Maybe your friend calls you up and asks you. That information gets processed by the brain and makes some very complicated calculations scouring the longterm and shortterm memory for variables to work with, might do some weighing of pros and cons, and then eventually yields an answer. Just like a desktop computer can be programmed to do. And that's what our brains are: very fancy and compact computers.

Now if we could free ourselves from this universe or the laws of physics in it, free will might be conceivable.

 

No you aren't wrong. Human behaviour depends on a set of complex neural processes influenced by stochastic noise. The unpredictability that arise from this is termed 'free will', and misunderstood as something 'supernatural'. In reality, it is just our inability to completely predict our own and others actions.

 

Epicurus...I saw future events in detail which could only mean that I have seen the future. Now inability to predict? false to me, because once I was like you doubtful that one can see the future...but once it happened to me, I became a believer.

 

Free will is very real. "Predestination/predetermination", as it's generally understood is pure bunk.

Take the genetic approach that someone mentioned as an example. Yes, our genes determine SOME of our physical characteristics BUT there are many genes present in each of us that never even became activated. We have certain predispositions toward certain things - like male-pattern baldness or breast cancer - but that's a LONG way from saying they are predetermined BECAUSE in many individuals they never appear.

By and large, the idea of having no free will is a crutch that many people use to try an avoid personal responsibility. "It's not MY fault - I had no choice because it was predetermined that I would be such-and-such or do such-and-such!"

That's sheer nonsense! We all have choices and are responsible for our own individual choosings and actions.

 

agreed. If everything is pre-determined, then they need to empty the prisons. Those people obviously couldn't help it.

 

from logic point of you, yes it is pure nonsence. Predestination/predetermination cannot be explained by logic, the only reasonble explanation is that it is bogus. But I have seen the future, once I have seen an event that happened 5 months after I have seen this dream in exact way as I have seen it and that is what changed me, you have to feel and experience in order to believe me or others who say that predetermination is true. And it is true, I cannot explain why because it is illogical...but paradox it is, it exists and is possible

 

I can also 'see' future events to a certain degree. I can probably quite correctly 'see' what I will do tomorrow when I wake up in order to go to work. I suppose this is not the type of 'seeing' you describe.

If you indeed can predict the future based on totally unknown mechanisms, then you should do science a big favor and get this ability tested in a proper experimental setting. You can pick up quite a lot cash on the way if you sign up for the James Randi test.
So far, claims of 'supernatural' abilities seem to melt away when tested rigorously and I don't expect yours to be any different.

 

Ideas cause ideas, which in turn cause actions. In the realm of the will, the causes and effects are patterns of patterns that exist only in motion and time - they have no relevant mass, or particular location, or necessary material existence of any kind.

Even in the "material" (particular level of pattern) world, nothing is predestined 100%. Cause and effect is a shorthand description for very, very likely sequences of events.

No will is free, 100%, but at least some wills have some freedom - we know this by the fact that some wills (drug addicts', say) are less free than others.

If you deny all freedom to will, how do you account for the difference between a drug addict's will and a normal one ?

 

the limit to freedom expressed by the material world is not a limit to free will. Free will has to do with being apart from everything around you. There is no such thing as limit of free will...there is such expression, but the experience is an illusion of such, the free will remains 100% always as long as we live.

 

Free will is limited only by our selves. Our capacity to will, so to speak..

 

I don't know so much about all this predetermination stuff, myself. But I still very much doubt we're free.

Uhh, yeah. Some genes aren't activated and some are. So? You're still influenced by whichever genes are influencing you. It certainly doesn't make you free. I don't know what your point is here.

It certainly is for some people. But I also think it is true. However, this is really irrelevant to whether free will is true. "No free will" may well be a crutch as you say, but it doesn't make it untrue and it really has nothing to do with the argument. But since you bring it up, although I don't believe we have free will and I doubt that it's even possible, I believe at this time it's most prudent and most convenient to act and pretend like we have free will. Indeed, all of our interaction is based on the assumption of free will.

When someone commits a crime, you treat the criminal as if he made a decision. That's just how we are. But even if we lived in a society which didn't believe in free will, would how we deal with him really be so much different? You might think that since he doesn't have free will, it doesn't make sense to punish him, but there I would disagree. Even though we don't have free will, we are still able to learn and manipulate others. If we didn't stopped punishing people they would lose a lot of incentive to not commit crime. Punishment, regardless of morality, is necessary. By we punishing and rewarding people, we're influencing their "decisions"; we're altering their brain chemistry and changing the way they behave in the future. This is, in fact, exactly what we do every day of our lives. We manipulate and learn and mistake it for freedom. There's probably a good Darwinian explanation for it.

There is an antecedent to everything in the universe. You, as wonderful and complex as you are, are no exception.

 

shouldn't this thread be in the philosophy forum?

 

The issue is not whether you would try to make cash on your alleged 'supernatural' ability or not.

The issue is your claim to have an ability that, if I have understood you correctly, transcends everything we base current psychological and neuroscientific models on as well as basic physics.

So the question is why you continue making this extraordinary but unsupported claim on internet forums when you could get yourself tested and radically change humankinds understanding of ourselves and the universe around us.

 

I think it muddles the issue to mix the question whether 'free will' exist with the obvious social gain of acting as we have a 'free will'. I don't see any evidence for 'free will' as such. Still, I am all in favor of the society responding to people as if they had a 'free will', it all boils down to pretty basic psychology and letting people learn from their mistakes.

 

You seem to not realize that is self-contradictory.

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People CANNOT learn from their mistakes unless they have the free will to change their behavior.

Free will exists - the rest is just nonsense. Certainly there are things that influence the choices we make. But to assume that what you had for breakfast this morning was already determined at some point before or when you were born is utterly absurd. And if you think that's to trivial a thing to care about, just exactly where, on the scale of things, do we "loose" our free will, eh? In picking a job? Or choosing a mate? Where does it occur?

 

Certainly there's a contradiction there, but it's a trivial one. A religious belief might bring about more constructive/adaptive behaviour. Similarly a false belief in 'free will' may have a positive impact on individuals/the society. That doesn't necessitate that neither the religious tenet nor the idea of 'free will' is true in itself.

As for the proposition that people cannot learn from their mistake unless the have 'free will'. Humans are 'learning machines' as much as any other animal, and both we as well as many animals learn if provided with the right feedback. In animals, there's no need to invoke the concept of 'free will' to explain learning behaviour, why should humans be a special case? The neuroscience and psychology of learning mechanisms are fairly well known, although humans superior linguistic/rule based abilities offer more complex type of learning.

I am not sure what you mean by a cut-off where we lose our 'free will'. Although the human brain is one of the most complex systems on earth, natural laws still apply. My inability to predict some of my future choices merely reflect this constraint rather than a 'ghost in the machinery'.