Why free will is impossible

You make some very good points. Did you ever see that program that talked about experiments with subliminal pictures being flashed during a regular movie. The flashed pictures were to fast to be seen by the conscious mind, but were noticed by the sub conscious mind and did have an impact. I don't think the impact was as much as a longer look that was seen by the conscious mind. But for someone watching a lot of TV, subliminals being used over months or years could make a big difference to influencing what would appear to be freewill.

 

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No I just know about it from my dad telling Me when I was young . Sales was his life after the air-force and I wondered if the way he latched onto that bit of knowledge from all the knowledge he gained from navigation and officer training if that had something to do with him going into sales. The things we remember and the things we don't . I tend to believe we remember every thing on a subliminal level and we call up the memories on an as need to know bases . I think this in its self helps provide the illusion of free will . If you could remember every thing from your beginnings you might realize why you do those things you think you do out of perceived free will . So instead of someone saying " I don't know why I said that they would say F--ck I know why I said that . It was based on this experience I had when I was 6

 

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That is very perceptive of you and it also sounds right to me. So a bad memory is when your need to know is not being satisfied by your subconscious mind. That puts a whole new light on having a bad memory.

For the record I think there may actually be some free will, just very little of it and it does a very good job of hiding behind the illusion free will. All animals have instincts including humans and instincts are what we call animals acting within their nature, humans included. Is there anything in acting within our nature that sounds like freewill?

 

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I don't know Killjoy . I have been working at being free for God knows how long . Just when I think I have done something I thought was free will I discover it was already predicted. It f--cken drives me to insanity . My best conclusion is free will is something to strive for . That thing that is just out of reach , but we are driven to the idea of having free will . I think American values are based in this . If we keep shooting for the Ideal of free will maybe it is a reachable goal . I will tell you if you can become aware enough of your surroundings and see the clicking of events it is a first step at having free will . It will f--ck you up pretty good . When I first saw the language of human instinct for the first time with out any of my own veils clouding interpretation I fucking freaked big time and could not come out of my house for about 8 hours and I had places to go that were very important . To Freaked . I had to put the veil back on . Fuck it was strange. Every click finger movement groan wiggle had interpretations in enter action . I could see disappointment, agree ability , contempt , content long before verbalization occurred. It was like vocabulary was secondary . Like watching Elk in the rut . Freaked me out .

 

I tell you what ? If more people can see what I saw there would be a paradigm shift in human consciousness. We would realize the dependency we have on each other . It blows my f--cking mind ! It travels too. THe smallest of actions can grow like a little breeze that turns into a hurricane. The thought now is you say something or do something and it drops to the floor dead. It don't drop dead . That act can magnify into world wide events . Resonance is kind of creepy that way . To think a small movement in something can have big impacts makes me reevaluate my personal motivations , I try not to get up tight about it for if there is no free will I can only do what I do . My main goal is awareness and to help others be aware . Your pretty sharp for a Kill joy ass clown . You have a tendency to want to wake people up to the possibility of gaining free will . I like you for that if I didn't tell you . I respect your posts even if you are a killjoy . You know safety consciousness is a good thing. It keeps carpenters from cutting there all there fingers off . Only kill joys can understand that

 

Simply make it okay that the illusion of freewill is enough and maybe some day you will be pleasantly surprised, but if you never are, then being freaked out won't be a problem again.

Next problem I have is someday in the not to far off future some robot or computer will become sentient. When that happens will it have freewill?

 

Me-Ki-Gal; I do understand you.


I have a very strong personal opinion, that for free will to work we have to "let the ghost take over", it may sound weird, but your knowledge of the factors of free will make you less free, when you have determined the factors you will be less free if you try to oppose them. Not going with the flow is inhibitant of free will.


As I see it free will is above the rules, but only if you let it. If you analyse it then you force it to abide by the rules (cause it is by the rules that you try to determine it). Free will is like the rats that dances on the table while the owner is out. Don't try to listen and you can hear the trees whisper.

 

Free will is a type of will. Free will is choosing what facts and factors you will be influenced by. Deliberation. Analysis. Reflection. Understanding.

Free will is not having no influences/no cause at all. That is randomness. Randomness is not freedom, it is a total lack of control. You are not free if you are impulsive and entirely unhinged from your desires and character.

I love my mother with all my heart, so one day I suddenly kick her down the stairs for now reason. Is that the freedom you seek?

The free will/determinism debate is a trick. It presumes if you have influences or causes for your actions that you didn't get to choose that action. That is a misunderstanding of choice.

There are free choices and compelled choices (they can be compelled by internal shortcomings or by external duress). They aren't all one or the other. That is simply a misuse of the concepts based on redefining them improperly as "free will" needing to occur outside a causal nexus.

Would it be fair to put someone in prison for a random act he had no control over? No. That's why we demand mes rea, the evil intent.

 

You are of course implying that evil intent in and of itself is free will without regard to it's source. But suppose that person had a very bad childhood that predisposed him to think in a way we would call evil intent? Suggesting not free will but a response based on past experience.

When it comes to removing criminals from society I don't much care whether they have free will or not, if you know what I mean?

 

Not really. See below.

Predisposed doesn't have to be the same thing as predetermined. People who reflect and strive to improve can change. They can take charge and fight their urges. That, in and of itself, is freedom. Not the randomness of having no causes for the urge to improve. You can always find a cause, the question at hand is whether that causal chain reflects the type of deliberative process we think of as freedom or if it is compelled by whatever (external influences or internal whatevers-habits, compulsions, pathology etc.)

I am totally with you on that.:bravo: I think we punish both the deliberate evil genius and the guy who is so self-indulgent/unreflective/lazy/sick or whatever that he just does evil impulsively and for no reason at all. He isn't free in the extreme sense (it's a continuum) but he sure wasn't externally compelled, so he's free enough to be convicted.

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When I say predisposed, it could mean a form of limited free will, by limited I mean a small subset of choices which are available to anyone for any given decision based on a combination of genetics and learned behavior from family and environment.

The question then to be answered is how you would classify limited free will? Is it considered free will or not. I think I would have to vote “not”.

 

Absolute unbridled unrestrained freedom doesn't exist. I would even go so far as to say that it can't exist. I'm not just talking about free-will either, but everything in the entire universe. So I think we need to work with a more reasonable definition of freedom. One that is not so absolute.

 

Is it possible that you are still thinking that because a decision making procedure is in space/time and is therefore part of a non-random causal nexus, and can be predicted, then it can't be "free"?

Meaning "free" requires some sort of escape from the causal chain? I think that would make it random, and as above, that is probably the last thing you want want to be. Unable to control your own actions. Unable to predict your own actions. If the causal nexus has gaps, no matter how small, miracles will happen. And if its really random, they won't always be what you want.

Isn't freedom really being able to do what you want? (Napoleon Dynamite)

I think it's easy to get so good at thinking "determinism" is true that the causal nexus is seen as eliminating freedom, when freedom actually requires the predictability of the causal nexus.

Just because I can predict that a person I know well will do the virtuous thing in a situation, doesn't mean that he didn't freely chose to do that thing, or that he didn't freely choose to mold himself into a virtuous person, or that he didn't freely choose to examine the influences in his life and decide which role models he wanted to emulate. Sure it's all caused. That doesn't mean that he didn't really study and analyze and consider and research and observe and consult and come to the most rational and thoughtful decision he could. That is what exercising maximum freedom is all about. The less of that you do, the more you just go by reflexes, or instincts or unreflective feelings the less freedom you are exercising.

Two more cents.

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I'm sure most God fearing religious people feel that way too. Sorry I don't buy it.

 

There are other aspects to free will. Free will is the ability to freely choose between alternatives. If you put an apple and orange on the table, and you prefer the apple, you lack free will, since an unconscious bias has made that choice for you. It would only be free choice/free will, if neither or either made any difference. Someone without free will, can still chose the alternative, but there may be a price to pay (not as satisfied). Free will and free choice has no price difference between alternatives. You don't lose or gain anything by going in any particular direction; free.

If you are a liberal or a conservative, an atheist or religious, etc., by definition you lack free will, since your inherent bias has chosen for you. To go the other way, there will be a price to pay, that makes that choice not free. You are still a slave to unconscious processes, whether they be personal or social, which take the place of free will.

In the case of different political or spiritual orientations, free will would need to stand in the middle and would not gravitate left or right. The symbol of Christ on the cross between the two thieves (both steal free will), is a symbol of free will. Free will takes training and is not part of natural instinct, since natural instinct has a bias built into it. For the trainng, one needs chose to be in a state of suspension, between left and right, until one can chose either. both. Then there is free will.

 

We are not as free as we think but still it would not work any other way. Our mirror neurons even automatically bring actions and others into us… to some degree of saturation (or not)…

Why do we not eat all the scarce food, feeling the other’s hunger? Why are moods contagious? Why do we feel the wish to dance when we see another doing so? Why do I feel your pain when you cut your finger? Why might I get an itch when you scratch yours? How are you “out there” felt “in here”? How do your acts become mine, and my acts become yours? Mirror neurons!

Using very thin electrodes, experimenters measured the activity of a single neuron of the premotor cortex in a monkey grasping a peanut. Amazingly, a bit later, an experimenter grasped a peanut—and the same monkey neuron activated merely by watching. This was the beginning of explaining vicarious feelings—the mirroring of others’ behaviors. It seems that free will is not so impregnable; each time I witness your movements, you permeate my stronghold.

It extends to sounds, sensations, and emotions, as well, and so we can feel all of those inside of us, as if we were in another’s shoes. These brain circuits blur the bright line between your experiences and mine. Without these mirror neurons there could have been no learning; but, it goes beyond that and onto intuitive altruism. In many places in the world, people tend to share the wealth. Of course, sometimes, our desire for benefits might outweigh our empathy.

In the military, the general is at a distance that separates him or her from the suffering that their armies cause. The same for weapons that kill at a distance—empathy can then be bypassed in the service of efficiency. Otherwise, it is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.

Each time we see an action, our mirror neurons mimic and transform this sight into the motor commands necessary to replicate the action; however, a neural gate blocks the immediate output of our motor areas. Behind this gate, we can covertly share the actions of people around us. We feel them, and they thus become a part of our extended self. The brain is ethical by design. It was advantageous to know anothers needs.

 

Both you and SciWriter have made some good points. What I think on this subject is only my opinion. But however much I want there to be free will, I'm not very convinced there is any. But if there is, I am sure it only surfaces at key decisions in ones life and remains a rare occurrence. Again if there is some free will that takes place as Wellwisher says training might make a big difference in some people having more than others who don't work at it.

 

Forget it !! The whole premise of this thread is pure BS. If there is no free will then there is NO individual responsibility AT ALL. And the only people who fully subscribe to such nonsense are those who are trying to duck responsibility for their personal actions.:bugeye:

 

I'm sorry, but what does a legal issue have to do with the reality of the situation.

 

So are you saying to feel completely compelled to do everything you do, and you have no control over it? No real choices? Never? Eternal and complete helplessness to exercise any freedom to do anything?

Just kidding but: There is medicine for that.

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