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Free Will

991 views · started by GAMEchief ·
#1
Free Will
As a metaphysical concept, do you believe free will exists? Or are you deterministic?

I personally don't. I think the idea of free will is silly, especially with such evidence against it, such as epiphenomenalism, psychology, learning patterns, reflexes, evolution, ingrained ideas, predispositions, mental disorders, fMRIs, etc. I think it's baffling that anyone can still believe in free will, at least without some overarching religion telling them "because I said so." Which, while I think is dumb, I can understand why someone would believe it.

Free will as an unpredictable physical occurrence, as Hawking defines it, obviously can exist. That is mathematically provable. Obviously the concepts exist, as we experience them; the issue is merely that they aren't what we think they are. Free will is an illusion, not a metaphysical operator.
#2
How about if "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills"?
#3
I belive everything is planned.
#4
Free will is a lie created by stupid people
#5
Mota wrote:
I belive everything is planned.

When you say planned do you assume something planned it? Are you telling me you think god pulls the stings? If so then do you also believe in heaven and hell? Or even good and evil for that matter?

Free will is a lie created by stupid people

Is it?
You perceive free will as the norm of your interaction with the world on a daily bias. If it's all you've ever know and will know how can it be a lie? For all intents and purposes the world functions as if free will were real. You're held accountable for your actions, belies, thoughts, etc. You're expected to alter behavior based on experiences and access to information, failure to do so is regarded as a choice. The legal and moral vernacular codifies free will as real. Even if it's not real humanity experiences what feels and acts like free will from their vantage point.
Think of it like this, matter is 98% nothing. There is very little anything anywhere in the universe yet because of your size and the way you perceive things regard most matter as something even though it's really nothing. Still just because the chair you're sitting in is mostly nothing and just because you can reason that doesn't make your chair any less real does it?

Oh, and before you go making accusations that only stupid people believe in free will, Albert Einstein spent most the last part of his life trying to prove both free will and the existence of god because he believe in both and felt that nothing made sense without them.
Conversely Stephen Hawkins will tell you that there is no place for god or free will in the universe. (which I think is a funny place to look for god, but whatever)
#6
C0FFINCASE wrote:
Is it?
You perceive free will as the norm of your interaction with the world on a daily bias. If it's all you've ever know and will know how can it be a lie?

Illusions are lies, and at the same time, why are you positing that anyone "knows" they have free will? I 'know' I don't. If it's all I've ever not known, what makes you think I have it?

For all intents and purposes the world functions as if free will were real.

It also functions as if free will were not real.

You're held accountable for your actions, belies, thoughts, etc.

Irrelevant of free agency. Animals are also held accountable for their actions, yet we don't often state that they have free will. Volcanoes are responsible for their pollution, but that doesn't mean they willed pollution.

You're expected to alter behavior based on experiences and access to information, failure to do so is regarded as a choice.

Umm, no. You can't "fail" to do so. Abstaining from a behavior is still a behavior. And "choosing" not to do it is still altering your behavior based on experiences and access to information. The entire idea behind determinism is that that choice is an illusion. You aren't making some metaphysical manipulation of your physical body. Your physical body functions just as a calculator to determine what output it will give based on input it has received (experiences and information). Regardless of whether or not the output is to perform or abstain from a behavior, no metaphysical agency is involved.

The legal and moral vernacular codifies free will as real.

Legal, absolutely. At the same time, does that make it valid? There is a huge problem with people suffering from mental illnesses finding themselves in prisons on the tax payer dollar instead of in institutions that can help them.
As for moral, only to someone who believes in free will. My moral vernacular does not regard free will as real. Why would it?

Even if it's not real humanity experiences what feels and acts like free will from their vantage point.

Most do, for what seems to happen innately. That doesn't make it a real thing, however, or her statement false that only dumb people believe it. Although that's surely wrong, she probably means and you could probably more adequately phrase it, "Only people uneducated in or cognitively dissonant about philosophical matters."

Think of it like this, matter is 98% nothing. There is very little anything anywhere in the universe yet because of your size and the way you perceive things regard most matter as something even though it's really nothing. Still just because the chair you're sitting in is mostly nothing and just because you can reason that doesn't make your chair any less real does it?

Are you high?
What does that have to do with free will?

Oh, and before you go making accusations that only stupid people believe in free will, Albert Einstein spent most the last part of his life trying to prove both free will and the existence of god because he believe in both and felt that nothing made sense without them.

Yeah, some of the smartest people in the history of the world were religious. And some of the smartest people in the history of the world were also non-religious. And many determinist, and many believed in free will. Altogether intelligence has nothing to do with metaphysical matters, but I think her (his? fuck avatars throw me off) statement was more meant how I paraphrased it.
#7
relevant
#8
What's going to happen, will happen. You just don't know it.
#9
The illusion of free will is created by the lack of restrictions imposed on your choices, but what you choose in these choices is determined by the characteristics of your brain. Most of these characteristics are created on birth, and others are acquired through life by environmental and social interactions.