Why free will is impossible

Yes, there is always causal.
The question is whether there is also always determinism?

My favorite one.

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Originally Posted by litewave
How can we say that someone is morally responsible for his action and deserves a punishment for it, when this action originates from beyond his consciousness?
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So, then, with this “free will” become, one might then succumb to systematic deception about one’s causal connection to that of nature, a roadblock, a detour that’s neither possible, necessary, nor desirable. The enemies to these “free will” motifs would be the mythical cultural beliefs that explain behaviors and feelings in terms of unknowable forces and beings. But, to protect one’s moral virtues should one still believe oneself’s purview to be as an ultimately responsible agent, lo—a self creation ex nihilo, a god-like, miniature first cause who chooses without it being determined by one’s own muses?

Well, maybe, but, nay, really not, nil, for there is no contra-causal free will. What the good then of this fix we’re in? Such it is then that we can gain a measure of peace rather than the anger of resentment’s crease when someone does or says something ‘bad’, even those close relatives you once had. For the civil-law-breakers and all those ungiving takers we’ll no longer incarcerate for punishment, being so irate at the jail’s bait, but so that society will be protected and that they might emerge corrected from the swill of a prison mill, fulfilled with a new unfree will that points more toward goodness, or at least away from badness. Thus, the action of metaphysical justification for a total retribution then greatly softens, a relief from the stress, so often, for it’s no longer induced from the abuse produced. Really? Truly.

 

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Nah.

 

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We replace the word 'punishment' with 'society protecting itself'.

As far as free will goes most of what we do is not free will, but responses based on your core values, training and survival. That's not to say you can't consciously plan to respond differently to a given situation. To me that's exercising free will.

 

Realization of the nonexistence of free will may help us. Then again, this realization originates from beyond one's consciousness as well. For example you may realize it from my OP.

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Indeed, we become less self-conscious, more playful, less noxious, more gracious, less callow, and less likely to wallow in the sorrow that is so hollow and shallow in its excessive self-blame, pride, envy, or resentment—now all put aside.

Aren’t we changing the will here as we go? Yes, ever to a new one, yet the fixed will must ever follow what we know. So, then we are learning—the only hope for larger earnings from the will’s then wider yearnings! Yes, overturning.

 

Ok

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Our fixed wills have a similar outlook, litewave, yours and mine.


In conclusion:

What if to learning we are averse? What a curse! Might as well call the hearse. So, then, all in all, though a tempt, it is that we humans are not exempt from the laws of physics—a preempt although we’ve been wired to make the attempt—a seeming violation by nature of its own universal law and structure. No, it’s not a violation I would call, for science still did tell us all. It’s all part of the structure; one can never cheat Mother Nature. Hail, then, to the physic.

Well, it’s not so bad, is it? Although we can never will the will, its motives ever our intent to fulfill; it is that we have no free will. True, plus we can expand the will’s horizoning through our broader learning’s wisening. Yes, learn today and by tomorrow, say, the will may have a different sway. I wouldn’t want it any other way, for then I wouldn’t be me—my screenplay. What other ways can we improve the play? Well, we have patience and delay, for we don’t have to act right away—until a more creative solution appears.

 

If you situate free-will in the part of the mind that makes a decision instead of the part of the mind that analyzes it immediately afterwards, then there isn't really a problem.

 

Here's the definition I'm using from this link

http://www.catholicreference.net/index.cfm?id=33656

FREE WILL
The power of the will to determine itself and to act of itself, without compulsion from within or coercion from without. It is the faculty of an intelligent being to act or not act, to act this way or another way, and is therefore essentially different from the operations of irrational beings that merely respond to a stimulus and are conditioned be sensory object.s


All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

 

murderers have more free will than you do. cut your finger off and post it on the net . You cant do it can you ? O.K. try something simple like pop on the hood of your car in broad day light in front of your neighbors. You can't do it can you . You don't have free will tat all . I can tell by your rhetoric you don't. I think maybe someone else is confused. You are a product of your conditioning . O.K. go 3 weeks with out bathing how boat that . You can do that right. So lets see if we can get hung up on actions instead of words .
Don't cut your finger off I was just joking about that . Do the pop thing and get back to me , oh and just for fun eat it

 

Check this out

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http://www.quodlibet.net/articles/williams-mind.shtml

 

I see and agree, or not

 

Not from the beginning of time, since there is real randomness in nature (at the quantum level). Still, the reason I wore a red shirt today is, in part, because I wore a blue one yesterday and there is some program in my brain that resists wearing clothes that are too similar from day to day.

The question of free will is not at all stupid because the neuroscience has for several decades been chipping away at the notion that we can spontaneously generate a thought independently from the state of the brain, and that we cannot spontaneously change the state of the brain. There is nothing conclusively demonstrating that free will does not exist, but the more we study the brain, the more it seems to be as mechanistic as any other organ. (There are studies that show that our brain often sets course of action before the relevant signals are processed by the profrontal cortex...yet people report those actions as feeling like they resulted froma free choice as well. So in cases where we feel as though we "chose" an action, no rational deliberation was done until afterwards—unless the control of the executive function is not as dependent on the prefrontal cortex as we believe.)

It could even be that my decision to wear that red shirt was influenced by true randomness that arose while I was considering what to wear. It could be, for example, that somewhere in the synapses quantum mechanical randomness does creep in and that small change in initial conditions leads to a different selection. Even in that case, and even assuming that events prior to this morning had *no* influence on my decision, I still did not control the decision...it was literally the result of a random fluctuation which I had no control over (except the illusion of control).

It does feel like I have free will, but either free will resides in the brain, or it resides somewhere else. Since there is no evidence of a "somewhere else" from which it could come, we expect the brain to be the physical source of free will. So far, though, the more we learn about the brain, the less we see any home for free will in it.

I like to believe that we will solve the problem and figure out a way to explain free will existing, but neither side has a slam dunk argument yet.

 

Ok...not gonna do it...not gonna.... DAMMIT! CAN'T HELP MYSELF!!!!

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BWAAAAAH! *head explodes*

 

Looking at it from an evolutionary perspective, one has to wonder why consciousness evolved in the first place. If we don't have free-will, and are just along for the ride, isn't it a little extraneous? Wouldn't a philosophical zombie suffice?

But we are not philosophical zombies, and it is therefore reasonable to conclude that consciousness evolved because it provided a survival advantage. But what possible survival advantage could a conscious entity have over a philosophical zombie? I can't think of a single one.

Unless, of course, consciousness endows an entity with free-will (in the truest sense of the term).

 

Philosophers, and possibly neuroscientists, know that free will is an illusion.

Philosophy tells us that life is a constant stream of events, and all events are connected. So if there is no room left for choice, or freedom to choose, then freedom of choice is what you have when you ignore the philosophical conclusion that you haven't got any.

By ignoring the blindingly obvious--you are compelled by circumstance to choose, which means you have no freedom--you can imagine that the chain of cause and effect has "missing parts", the ones you forget about. . .
Simple really.

 

They know, do they?
Wow. I wonder why they're still talking about it...

 

That was pretty good . A little repetitive and the angel thing towards the front end was a dead give away it was a god paper. I still believe in determinism after reading it and I couldn't quite rap my brain around my mind , but that might be because I am naturally from the earth . Yet I do think there is something that governs action that is God like. Determinism is my best solution that determines out come . It goes towards the thought that information already exists and it is only there waiting for the day of discovery and by chain of events they are revealed. I think if we could brake open all the silos of information all at once and stuff em tight and snug in our brains ( minds ) then we might have a chance at free will , otherwise we are repeating events that already happened . Let Me give an example . The Herold's day doom thing . Now we know about this crazy Idea from the net ( That is how I did anyway ) It was quite a while back . So I had a reaction to it in the past . Now think of the people that heard about it on the news today for the first time . The majority will react like we did , or to say some will believe it, some won't . Chances are if we would of gathered the information back in the beginning to now the percentage of non belief and belief in the crazy idea would be the same . Maybe not . I think it would as long as the sampling was diverse enough in the first place . O.K. there was a number thing that had to do with adding your birth date to 2011 and the thing is everybody comes up with the same 11 kind of answer . It is something the 11:11ers came up with a long time ago . It is part of the 11;11 folk lore . So it can be explained easy enough why the equation works , but it is a great tool to get people to buy into the 11;11 following . So now hear it comes across my email address in a forward from a friend . The information for me was at the beginning of the information trickle . I was standing in a place that gave Me privilege to the information before my friends that are now reading it in a forward from another friend . I am not being clear . How can I put it ? They are reacting to the same thing lots of us already reacted to. The same trickle of information has now reached the new market yet it is the same information the 11ers invented way back .
Lets see if I can be more clear . This sight right here . The science forum . People have been on this sight for years . The question is when new comers show up are they predictable by the people that have been here for ever? Do the new comes make the same mistakes ( I am sure you old timers get a lot of shits and giggles out of it too) If we are put in a circumstance what are the chances the reactions will be limited in scope . So I ask " where is there free will if there is a predictability in reactions to a given situation? Lets take a T,V, show like candid camera with the practical joke. I would say the reaction by the people involved is similar . It is a rare event that someone will not fall for the trick and not look stupid . It becomes more of what degree you fall for the trick. So were is free will