Questions for those who think free will doesn't exist

[Samckeyes]

I'm just curious about this, not looking for any mud slinging, I just don't really understand this idea very well, on free will being an illusion of sorts, or just not real.

Now I think that This term in question is obviously tricky, but I am talking more about our ability To choose or act without regard to fate or necessity. Obviously there are many barriers very often that must be overcome to have certain freedom, example's would be ones upbringing, education, advertising, media, and many more. But these are things that can be overcome it seems to me.

It seems to me though there are times when we have the ability to have freedom of thought, feeling, opinion, and action, but I'm open to discuss any and all views on these ideas.

[Darias]

I think different people have different amounts of free will. Some people may potentially have no free will at all.

I personally feel that I have extreme free will bounded only by psychical limitations.

For example, I don't have the free will to defy gravity. In other words, my free will is indeed limited by the laws of the physical world. But I hold that within those constraints I have as much free will as can possibly be had.

Would you not also consider your own mind, the software-like phenomenon that arises solely from the hardware of your brain, a part of the natural world, governed by physical limitations? In that sense, yes, you're allowed as much free will as your brain lets you have. In the same sense a puppet has as much free will as the strings permit it to have.

Other people however, have told me that they don't have the free will to control their actions or resist impulses, etc.

Clearly some people do not have the same capacities to ignore unwanted thoughts or desires. Some people's brains actually amplify those things. But when I say we do not have free will, I do not mean that we neither have will nor willpower. I just mean that we are not the defacto authors of such wills, in the same way you have no control over what random thought or feeling comes to mind. The wills and desires we have are solely rooted in DNA, brain function, past decisions, ideas, influences, and a host of other factors.

There are times when I don't feel like doing something but I do it anyway because knowledge of the consequences of failing to do that thing are convincing. Sometimes I want to do something but I don't. But I can't explain the reasons behind every decision I make; I can speculate, and I may be right, but the fact is I simply don't have much insight into my subconscious. I have willpower like most people; sometimes it fails me and sometimes it doesn't. This doesn't mean I have free will.

It’s not that willpower isn’t important or that it is destined to be undermined by biology. Willpower is itself a biological phenomenon. You can change your life, and yourself, through effort and discipline – but you have whatever capacity for effort and discipline you have in this moment, and not a scintilla more (or less). You are either lucky in this department or you aren’t – and you cannot make your own luck.

But someone who has what we would consider to be mental illness may not have free will. They may not be able to chose to ignore impulses. Acting solely as a slave to impulse would hardly be free will.

Your mental capacity to act or withhold action on any random impulse or thought, wanted or unwanted, in no way implies you have free will. You are simply lucky you don't have a disorder or brain damage that wouldn't allow you the possibility to resist urges. If you were to imbibe a lot of alcohol, your inhibitions would be dulled if not silenced altogether and you could do or say anything really.

The good news for people who are less fortunate is that there are therapies and drugs that can reduce symptoms of compulsion and really help them live normal lives -- and give them willpower that their original physical limitations (their natural brains) couldn't possibly provide.

For example, there are medical treatments that help people who suffer through this disorder nearly every second of the day. Surprisingly most schizophrenics aren't violent, but whenever I hear schizophrenia as a cause for a violent crime, I am now able to understand how one could be driven to such madness. That doesn't mean we allow violent psychos to walk, it just means we have to treat them and contain them -- rather than "punish" them for their "intentionally evil" decisions and actions which they "made" when given the "free choice" to do otherwise.

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So for me, free will is obvious. I can't speak for others, they may or may not have free will.

The concept of free will is an obvious intuition, but that doesn't mean it's true. Further, we don't know if basing our criminal justice system or society on a commonly believed illusion benefits us or not.

I'm a reluctant acceptor of the reality that nothing in neuroscience supports the notion of free will. My acceptance of this reality isn't really a free choice because how can one choose to deny the truth? I'd rather the idea of compatabilistic free will to at least be true, but I'm not one to embrace wishful thinking. I have seen the facts about this and I'm left with no option but to accept reality.

This might mean I may not be able to take pride in my good actions when I know that some people lack the brain function or possess a chemical imbalance that robs them of the very ability to behave properly. But at least this helps to calm natural feelings of resentment or hatred towards people who do horrible things; no one harbors malice towards bears or sharks for what they do.

Just be humble and grateful that you have a normally functioning frontal lobe, a privilege of biology not everyone has.

[Samckeyes]

Is it?? That does not tell me what you mean by free will.

What I mean by free will is the simple observation that I am not driven to act as dust in the wind.

I don't need to react to natural impulses. Although I sometimes do as in the case of placing my hand in a fire, etc. But don't see these natural instinctual safeguards as being a violation of free will altogether. I recognize that free will is not absolute. I've already pointed out that I don't have the free will to defy the laws of physics.

But I feel that I do have the free will to chose whether or not to follow a crowd for example. Or whether or not to accept something as "Gospel Truth" etc.

These are all what I consider to be obvious free will choices.

And since I've learned to meditate, and practice shamanic journeying, I even realize that I have a great deal of free will control even over my thoughts and dreams.

Do you believe there is an entity out there with foreknowledge of what you will do?

No absolutely not. That would actually defy free will.

I could hardly have free will choice if some entity already knows ahead of time what my choices will be. That would force my choices to be carved in stone.

The Christian idea that an all-knowing God already knows what you will choose before you choose it is an oxymoron. It also violates the whole idea that there would even need to be some sort of "test" that people must go though so that they could be judged on a supposed judgement day. The whole Christian paradigm stands in blatant contradiction to any concept of free will choice, yet ironically they lay claim to this being a paramount part of their religion, and that without free will choice their religion would be meaningless.

But their religion is already necessarily meaningless because it's based on an extreme oxymoron. They need to claim that their God knows their decisions before they make them, yet they need for their choices to be the result of their own free will. That's oxymoronic.

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Also, our scientific observations of the nature of reality have been experimentally verified to show that nature herself does not know what will happen next with absolute certainty. All that nature herself can know is what the probabilities are that certain events might unfold as they do.

So how could a God know what's going to happen next in a universe whose very nature is only probabilistic?

In fact, there are scientists who argue that it is indeed this probabilistic nature of our world that allows us to have free will. I won't get into that here. But clearly there are even scientific reasons to believe in free will.

So I disagree that the Christian view is predestination, it's not even in the bible, before translators put it in there. Just because a while after Jesus and the bible was written, Christians came along and invented the idea of predestination doesn't mean that it is the Christian view.

[ttruscott]

Is it?? That does not tell me what you mean by free will.

What I mean by free will is the simple observation that I am not driven to act as dust in the wind.

I don't need to react to natural impulses. Although I sometimes do as in the case of placing my hand in a fire, etc. But don't see these natural instinctual safeguards as being a violation of free will altogether. I recognize that free will is not absolute. I've already pointed out that I don't have the free will to defy the laws of physics.

But I feel that I do have the free will to chose whether or not to follow a crowd for example. Or whether or not to accept something as "Gospel Truth" etc.

These are all what I consider to be obvious free will choices.


...

FREE in the theological sense usually refers to the lack of coercion or constraint upon the will, ie it is taken for granted it does not mean the freedom to chose to do anything and have it happen...

If the decision arrises from your own desire based upon all the evidence you have acquired and fits what you think is the best for you without any outside (genetics, culture etc) or created (part of your make up as made by GOD) constraints or coercions, your will can be said to be free.

It also seems to be true that we can choose while under genetic and cultural restraints and coercions but still feel free.

Peace, Ted

[ttruscott]

...

The Christian idea that an all-knowing God already knows what you will choose before you choose it is an oxymoron. It also violates the whole idea that there would even need to be some sort of "test" that people must go though so that they could be judged on a supposed judgement day. The whole Christian paradigm stands in blatant contradiction to any concept of free will choice, yet ironically they lay claim to this being a paramount part of their religion, and that without free will choice their religion would be meaningless.

But their religion is already necessarily meaningless because it's based on an extreme oxymoron. They need to claim that their God knows their decisions before they make them, yet they need for their choices to be the result of their own free will. That's oxymoronic.

...

I agree, as a committed Christian, with your analysis and do not fall back on "We will understand it sometime soon." because: I don't believe it.

I do not believe GOD "knows" our decisions made by true free will before we make them. An old (and discarded) understanding of omniscience has been renewed and is slowly spreading through the church.

Therefore lump denigration of Christian theology for the mistakes of some should be reviewed.

Peace, Ted

[Choir Loft]

[Replying to post 1 by Samckeyes]

Please do not rely upon illiterate opinion before forming your personal philosophy on the subject of free will.

To begin, the idea that one's choices and actions and decisions are preordained or ordered by higher powers comes from the Greek-Roman belief in pagan gods/goddesses called the fates. It is said that the fates wove a man's life like threads in a tapestry. The pattern of a man's life was thus determined by the fates alone.

This is also called fatalism. Fatalism is a total lack of free will.

Islam is said to be a religion of fatalism, being founded in its ancient past in the same sort of pagan beliefs that robbed a man of choice in life.

Insha'Allah - meaning 'Allah willing'. You've probably heard or read this phrase before. It has a double meaning in it's current context. On one hand it means that Allah favors the Saracen vs. the unbeliever. On the other hand it assumes a fatalistic ideology for the Muslim. "Que sera, sera -What will be, will be". That sort of thing.

The Holy Bible teaches that man has free will - with exception.

Rheinhold Neibhur once defined the role of man in the world as being Lord of Nature. The role of God in the world is as the Lord of History.

The Genesis account in the Bible establishes man as the earthly gardner - or ruler of all the earth and the creatures therein. To that end, man has authority to decide, to choose how he shall manipulate this planet and everything that lives upon it. The Lord of Nature.

The Bible also states that Almighty God will decide history, the rise and fall of kings, empires and nations - the course of general events. Not for nothing is He called the King of Kings. The Lord of History.

As to eternal salvation, all of the religions of man may be divided into two groups; those that DO and those that are DONE UNTO.

Those who DO:
With the single exception of Christianity, every single religion on the planet affirms a concept or concepts of doing good. We call it good works. One must be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. One is also expected to pay one's taxes and to die in unjust wars. In doing this one EARNS a ticket to enter heaven's gate.

Those who are DONE UNTO:
Christians believe that our eternal salvation is a free gift, not earned by any act of our own. It is an act of grace - of undeserved kindness from God alone. God does not respect the acts of man and will or will not give eternal salvation on His own terms - not man's.

To enter heaven, a Christian must accept the offer of divine grace.

At this point, Christian ideology diverges as to exactly what is happening at this point of 'acceptance'.

Joseph Arminius stated that man had limited free will to decide to accept salvation.
John Calvin stated that man does not have free will to decide to accept salvation (predestination).

At all other points, the two ideologies agree.

Christian evangelicals obviously agree with Arminism, while certain denominations such as Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc. generally agree with Calvinism. Others, like Episcopalians, have no idea at all what's going on.(*)

I offer all the above for your initial indoctrination in secular as well as Christian ideology. You will serve yourself well if you do your own homework before you decide what you will or will not believe. Your eternal destiny depends upon it...

and IMHO that is YOUR decision.

Important:
Christianity declares that no man has spiritual autonomy.
There is no such thing as a happy twilight zone of spiritual neutrality. One must either be a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. One must decide. Whether one does so freely or not is the core of the argument.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

(*) As a former Episcopalian of more than twenty years and one who has had the dubious pleasure of serving in the inner circles of the church I can attest to the accuracy of this remark.