Is free will inherent in life? Is it an illusion?

The universe is either random, determined, or both. All entities in the universe are governed by the laws of the universe, ie. they are determined by the causal chain, or are randomly acted upon, but they have NO choice in what happens to them.

I define life as entities that have free will. All life has an inherent ability to choose. I have a darwinian approach to free will, where all life has varying degrees of free will, humans having the most.

Do we really have free will in the sense that we are free from the laws of the universe? We are apart of the universe just as any other entity. The special ability of living things is that they can avoid harm and seek the good. How can we explain being free from the causal chain? If the universe isn't determined, rather it is completely random then that doesn't give us any more freedom. It just makes our actions random.

 

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in my view, we have no free will. we cannot do something for no reason. every action that we make is determined by various factors: our upbringing, our genetics, our environment, the circumstances that exist during the action.

an example that was made 'in favour' of free will was this: 'I like steak more than liver. but I can choose the liver.' you can. but you choose it for a reason. let's imagine that liver is healthy and steak is not. maybe you're choosing the liver for health reasons. the more common reason would be choosing the liver for the sake of proving determinism wrong. you are not doing so. only by choosing the liver for no reason whatever, would you be demonstrating that our behaviour is not determined. choosing the liver for no reason is, as far as i know, impossible.

my friend, who is an advocate of free will, thinks that he is proving a point by twitching randomly or dancing and saying 'so this was determined?' theologically it seems a bit silly, and that's primarily what he's reacting against. but his actions are motivated by the desire to demonstrate that there is free will. (there is an irony here: a belief in free will is determining his actions.) what random action he chooses likely depends on a number of factors.

choice, in my view, is ultimately an illusion.

 

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May I offer the suggestion that before posting on this thread all non-philosophers should at least read this brief discussion of free will:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

Of course, I have little expectation that any more than 8% of persons shall do so, not because they are exercising free will, but because they are being compelled to react against my suggestion in an effort to demonstrate that they have free will. Thus their attempt to provide proof they are right will merely provide evidence they are wrong.

 

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alteredperception:

We must ask whether or not this is valid. Many would claim that free-will is illusionary. In fact, philosophical libertarianism (the belief in free-will) is the least valid of the three views on the matter, as regards evidence to support it. But if we take this as a given, we can talk...

Are we free from the laws of the universe? No. The laws of the universe govern us entirely, just as you asserted. You've also attacked the notion of philosophical libertarianism very well with your question of freedom from a causal chain. How -can- we be free if we come from deterministic processes?

 

I've debated this one many times.

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I certainly agree that we are in now way free from the laws of the universe BUT that in no way implies that we do not have free will within the realm that does not violate those physical laws.

For example, was it predetermined that you would wear precisely those clothes - as opposed to others you own - today? Many free will believers would respond with "of course not, that's just trivial." Then my next question to them is at exactly what level does it kick in? They usually just go away muttering to themselves.

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There are 2 levels of freedom. Freedom within a determined universe. And freedom from a determined universe. I think it is impossible to have free will in the latter. But it is clear that we have degrees of freedom in a determined universe. If someone throws a rock at us, we have the ability (freedom) to choose to avoid by moving out of the way. But if an asteroid destroys earth we do not have the freedom to avoid it. Therefore we were determined to die. If we had the technology to destroy the asteroid, than we would have been able to avoid it.

In principle, couldn't we become so advanced that we could control our lives 100%. For instance, genetic engineering so we live forever, technology to travel throughout the universe, etc.??? Then we would have 100% freedom within a determined universe. But we still wouldn't be free from the univerise, we would still be governed by its laws.

 

do we really have the freedom to choose to avoid it? or do we simply avoid it because there is a rock coming at us? can we choose to avoid a rock which does not exist, and we do not believe exists? no. we can only react. we are reacting based on our environments. is it really a choice to avoid the rock? or do we just think it's a choice?

 

dr. cello -

I agree with you. Free will is an illusion. But we still must be able to differentiate between humans and inanimate objects. Therefore there is a more trivial freedom that humans possess. Using your words, we can react to things, which gives us the illusion of having choices. But really we are just entities that are more flexible than other entities.

My question is what are the limits to our flexibility? What if we advanced to the point where we could avoid any threat in the universe, seek whatever we desired, and live eternally (if the universe is eternal). Does this have any implications to whether or not free will is an illusion?

 

an inanimate object is incapable of action. an animate object (human, animal) is capable of action. a human is capable of intellect.

no, it doesn't have any real implications that i can see. it is true that most of our reactions are in direct response to our needs, but we would not eliminate need, and even then we would have desires. we would socialise. the limited number of 'choices' we have is not why we are not free; we are not free because in reality there is no choice, regardless of how many options we have.

 

The causal chain is based on event-causation. But certain free will proponents advocate agent-causation. As shown here:

"Free will exists. Like all things, it cannot be causeless or literally magical. Yet how could it be subject to causality and remain free? This can seem like a big problem if one accepts the determinist model of causality as a relationship among events. Consider the action on a pool table. The blow of a cue stick on a billiard ball (event 1) causes the motion of the ball (event 2), which causes the ball to reach the pocket (event 3), where it falls into the netting (event 4). In this model, given the properties of the objects to be acted upon and a set of initial actions, the changes in the system that follow are a matter of actions and reactions, or in other words, a chain of events. To trace causes is to trace the chain. An event that cannot be traced back to preceding events is, in this view, an event without a cause.

And there's the rub for free will. After all, if a human being really acts by his own will, deciding his own course of action, then preceding events do not fully explain the course chosen. On this model, free will seems anomalous, sui generis, bizarre, unscientific. Hence determinism.

Event causation is a useful model for analyzing some kinds of actions, but it is not a satisfactory philosophical account. What is causality, after all? It is the way in which entities act. There are no events without entities, the underlying objects that do the acting. There is no explosion without the bomb that explodes. There is no breathing without the body that breathes and the air that is breathed. A causal explanation is an explanation of action in terms of the entity's capacities for action, arising from its properties and relations. Free will is simply a human capacity for action, one that we will understand better in time. A choice is not uncaused. It is caused by the person who chooses. "

How can one refute the argument for agent-causation.

 

What would be more free: something that has no relationships with anything around it whatsoever, or something that has relationships with everything around it?

 

onefinity - irrevelent hypothetical. "the self" requires "the other" to define itself. You cannot have one without the other because they are dependent on eachother. In my opinion, the concept of "the self" is really an illusion human consciousness creates in order to function effectively. In reality, we are apart of "the other"

 

if freedom is an illusion, then neither is free. we simply say that the one with relationships is free because the illusion of freedom is so firmly ingrained in our minds.

 

I congraulate alteredperception. I had started a thread about free will long ago. After some thinking, I had come to the same conclusion. Free will and determinism are not contradictory ideas. You have the freedom to choose any dress you want. Yes, it has been predetermined that you would choose that dress. But that does not clash with your freedom, since that is what you wanted to do. And in fact, following this futher, we can see that true free will can exist only along with determinism. For, if you are always doing what you want to do ('want to' in the most basic sense), then there is always a reason why you did it. Actually the reason, or rather, cause, is mechanical in nature, but since you, as a being, also have a purpose for your actions, there is a bigger reason for the things you do. So it is possible to predict what you will do, precisely because you have free will. Causality does not interfere with purpose (your personal purpose, not some supreme or universal purpose).

Let's look at a vague analogy. You have to decide on which dress to wear to a party, from the set of dresses that you own. Your friend is there with you, and she/he knows you very well. And she guesses (in her mind) which one you're going to choose, and it turns out that she's right. Okay, we didn't go to the fully mechanical level, and this isn't proper determinism, but it illustrates my point nicely. Your choice was predetermined, and even your friend was able to guess it. Does this mean you have no free will? Not at all. It was because you had free will that you were able to choose the one you liked. And it was because your friend knew what you liked, that she was able to predict it. Free will is being able to do what you <I>want</I> to do. That is always possible (practically). It is what you <I>want</I> that is out of your control. <I>That</I> is decided by universal laws and circumstances. Wow, I had that idea right now. So things are much clearer now, for me at least. And for altered perception too, I hope.

 

Variety they say is the spice of life, so if varieties exist then choices must follow somewhere. Random is the same thing as determined because for something to be random it has to be inside a determined event or perspective and vice versa. D (r), R (d). If I roll a ball of dice in anticipation of a six and I get a one it is labeled a random throw because it is surrounded by a determined event. Respectively, if I get my six it is labeled a determined throw because of the randomness surrounding it. The roll and result of the dice is directly proportional to my wrists movement, length, superstition and luck; of cause we are not smart enough to analyze all the kinetics of this approach but the little control we can harness we do it in hope, luck, and “a blow of the dice. In truth randomness is all that really exists because it’s always present, it permits free will and happiness, control gives the illusion of determinism; controlling randomness if you will.

 

tolstoy explains this pretty well in war and peace and i agree with what he says, which is this:
free will doesn't exist because everything is an effect of something before it. essentially life is a domino chain, there's no possible way that if something falls upon the onepiece, that that piece won't fall and cause the next one to fall. in the end, even if we could go back in time to change our decisions, we would still be in the same circumstance and state of mind, so why would/should we make a different choice?

but then again there is the parallel universe argument, which is that all the choices we make are absolute random chance. and in that case for every choice we make there are infinite numbers of parallel universe in which the results of these choices manifest themselves. consequently there are an endless number of parallel universes because time and decisions can be broken down into an infinite number of moments. i don't really agree with that, but it's a noteworthy concept.

 

The universe allows freedom, in the form of free will. We exist. We are free to do what we want of what we understand. There are no limits to what we could want. There are limits to what we can do though, though we could overcome these limits in different ways (we could for example build a bridge over the river).

Your will is free in that way that whatever options you have you can choose from, and choose whatever you want. The feelings associated with choosing one option instead of the other is not a hinder of your choice, but rather a suggestion, you could base your decision on other things than that feeling, or just pick a option not basing it on anything. Or you could "move with the wind" picking each option by pure will.

 

Obviously our brains are so limited by nature that there are many things we can't even think of wanting.

 

I feel compelled to say that free will exists.

 

Awesome! I am surprisingly pleased by this thread. The issue of free will remains confusing for me, but currently I am leaning towards this compatabilist view that me and you have been describing.