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'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.

The short answer to your question is that freewill, at least as it commonly conceptualized, seems very intuitive. My only caveat is that those things which seem intuitive or commonsensical can be very unreliable tools with which to make conclusions about the natural world. For example, it was once widely believed that the sun spun round the earth -- an obvious observation at the time.

Let me preface by saying that as someone who doesn't believe in free will, I do not believe in fate either, especially that which is supposedly imposed by stars, luck, or deities.

That said, we do have limits. I do not have free will in the proper sense of the word because I cannot do everything or anything that I could imagine. My physical limitations prevent me from, say, surviving and filming the inside of a black hole.

These limitations also apply against the argument of freewill in the common sense of the term. For example, studies have shown that decisions are made in our subconscious several seconds before we become aware of it; we do not sense this delay internally -- in much the same way we do not sense the delay of sensation when we touch our toes and nose at the same time.

Another strike against free will is the fact that at any given moment you have no idea what thought might pop into your head. If I say pizza, I introduced an idea to you and now you just thought of it. However if one day you cant decide what you want to eat, and in that moment you simply fail to recall pizza -- a concept I am certain you know of because I just introduced it to you -- tell me, where is the free will in that?

Everything we are are products of our upbringing, our genetics, and the result of outside ideas and occurrences.

Not having free will does Not mean we are fated to childhood instruction. New ideas can inspire and lead to real changes in our lives. The knowledge that cigarettes cause cancer can scare some people to make changes that they would otherwise feel would be impossible, no doubt due to their addiction.

I myself have begun to drink more water everyday and to exercise more; often it is just a matter of starting a new habit.

However, I am not the sole author of those choices. Those choices matter tremendously, but it would be preposterous for me not to acknowledge that learning about health risks generated motivation and desire within me -- which caused me to make the choices I have.

We have will. We make choices. We have our thoughts. But we are not the sole author of our likes and dislikes. Our choices can affect those, but what causes us to make those choices are explained by deterministic factors.

In other words there is no extra magical ingredient to us.

However, when I say we can make choices, I do not mean that we are free to choose from a range of options at any given moment. That thinking leads us to believe we could have acted differently in the past. This is impossible.

If you set up the same scenario every-time, and withhold future knowledge of the outcome of the consequences of the choice you make, you will always make the same choice. The reason why change is possible is because we learn from our mistakes.

Now, understanding this reality -- and it is a reality because this is where the evidence has led us -- IS NOT a warrant to irresponsible behavior which we would not otherwise be doing.

Understanding that we probably don't have free will doesn't mean we should just lay in bed all day and not live -- you'll find this is very difficult if you try. Impulse will spur you to do something.

A lot of my argument comes from that of Sam Harris. I recommend you watch this lecture. And I'll leave you with one of his quotes:

... so effort and discipline and willpower these are all causal states of the brain that beget their own behaviours and behaviours lead to outcomes in the world

[ttruscott]

I suggest that a true free will decision is a very rare thing and must fit into a tight framework of reality to ever come about. This framework does not exist on earth, so I contend that our (necessary ) time of making true free will decisions was pre-earth, in the spirit world.

IF GOD set it up so HIS new creation had no coercion or constraints upon their choices, forcing them to choose anything, they had free will.

The Elements of a True Free Will Choice:

1. Free will can't be coerced:
Nothing in their created nature could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all genetics...

Nothing in their experience could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all, cultural or familial experience...

Nothing in their understanding or knowledge of reality could FORCE them to choose good or evil, love or hate.

In other words, they had to be completely and truly ingenuously innocent.

[Ref: definition of ingenuous: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ingenuousness as: 1. Lacking in cunning, guile, worldliness; artless. 2. Openly straightforward or frank; candid.

2. Consequences must be known but not proved:
The person must understand the full consequences of their choice or it is a guess, not a true choice. “What will happen if I choose left or right, the red pill or the blue pill?� must be answered in full detail.

But "PROOF" of the nature of the consequence would compel or coerce the person to choose what was proven to be the best for them. If the answer “death here,� “life there,� was proven, which would you choose? The weight of knowledge would destroy the effect of a true ‘free will’ choice.

If it were proven you would die if you went left, are you truly free to choose to go right? No, you are forced by your knowledge to go right. Therefore they must know, but without proof, the nature of the consequences of their choice.

Peace, Ted

[ttruscott]

WHY FREE WILL?

GOD wanted to create a Church, a congregation of people in full loving, holy communion with HIM in heaven BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO BE THERE WITH HIM IN THAT REALITY! They must truly want love, holiness and heaven as HE defines it.

How did HE find all the people in HIS creation who would like to live that way, after HE taught them all about it and all about the alternatives? HE asked them to make a true free will decision to accept HIM as their GOD and to accept HIS purpose for their creation.

How did HE ensure they really wanted that and were not just pushed into it by something? HE offered no proof at all that HE was divine and that HE could take us to heaven or help us learn to be pure, holy and loving but asked us to accept this on faith, ie the hope that it was all true because we liked what we heard so well and wanted it so much, we didn't need proof to accept it. Faith = hope, hope in our resurrection to eternal life in heaven with GOD in full loving, holy communion, ie fuflilling the reason for our creation.

By not proving HIMself overwhelmingly, GOD allows us each to choose where to put our faith, by which we actually define our own reality, the world view we live in which also defines both God and our relationship with Him from our point of view. "This is what I believe" means "This is the way I hope it is, the reality of the universe." 2 Corinthians 5:7 We live by faith, not by sight (ie proof).

BUT once someone chose to accept HIM as their GOD and to accept HIS purpose for their creation, HE gave them the promise of ELECTION to heaven, backed by the gospel promise that if they should ever choose to become evil in HIS sight, HE would do what ever was necessary to bring them to redemption, back to HIM and back to their original true free will decision.

For those elect who did chose to become evil in HIS sight, HE gave us PREDESTINATED lives on earth, perfectly designed to fulfill our salvation and to bring us to holiness.

Peace, Ted

[Goat]

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.

Question 1) What do you mean by free will?

[Divine Insight]

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.

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

I can understand this to a limit. For example, if you wield a sledge hammer toward my face I'm probably going to duck instinctively. It would take a whole lot of will power to stand still and allow a sledge hammer to be driven into my face at high speed. Although in theory I probably could chose to allow that to happen via free will (especially if I'm allowed to close my eyes so I don't see it coming)

But I can't understanding being driven by every little impulse that runs through my brain. On the contrary if I were driven by that along, I'd be in huge trouble for running up and attempting to become physically intimate with every sexy women I happened to stumble across.

In fact, I confess that those particular desires are probably the hardest to resist via free will choice. The mere fact that I can choose to resist those desires seems to me to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that I do indeed have free will.

What I don't have, is the ability to freely chose to act upon all my desires without having to consider the potential consequences of those actions.

But do I have free will?

Yes, in fact, I can't see how I could possibly not have free will.

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.

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

[Goat]

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.

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

I can understand this to a limit. For example, if you wield a sledge hammer toward my face I'm probably going to duck instinctively. It would take a whole lot of will power to stand still and allow a sledge hammer to be driven into my face at high speed. Although in theory I probably could chose to allow that to happen via free will (especially if I'm allowed to close my eyes so I don't see it coming)

But I can't understanding being driven by every little impulse that runs through my brain. On the contrary if I were driven by that along, I'd be in huge trouble for running up and attempting to become physically intimate with every sexy women I happened to stumble across.

In fact, I confess that those particular desires are probably the hardest to resist via free will choice. The mere fact that I can choose to resist those desires seems to me to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that I do indeed have free will.

What I don't have, is the ability to freely chose to act upon all my desires without having to consider the potential consequences of those actions.

But do I have free will?

Yes, in fact, I can't see how I could possibly not have free will.

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.

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

Is it?? That does not tell me what you mean by free will. For example, do you believe inCompatibilism, or Compatibilism?? Hard determinationsim, Metaphysical Libertarianism, or hard indeterminationism? Or are you talking about causal determinism?

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

[Divine Insight]

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.

~~~~

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.

[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.

Question 1) What do you mean by free will?

Ok I figured this problem would come up, let's go ahead and just forget the term free will for this discussion it is far to subjective. The idea I am more so referring to would be things like, can we make our own choices or decisions, things like choosing what we want to spend our life doing, if we want to get married, and if yes then choosing who.

I don't think we have absolute freedom in any way, and yes sometimes there are unavoidable circumstances that impinge on our ability to make choices and such, sometimes there I not much we can do, but other times it depends on how an individual responds to things like advertising and so on.

[Goat]

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, do you actually do something but act as 'driven by the wind'? Can you show that your 'tests' about 'placing your hand in the fire', and such is NOT predetermined by your experiences and genetics?

How do you know?? How can you tell? Can you show your actions are not predetermined?

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.

Ah.. you FEEL. People feel lots of things. It is feeling that are programed into people that drive them to actions. Can you show that your feelings are not driven by your genetics and experience, as well as your conclusions? How can you tell your feelings are right?

I personally can't tell if making choices are hard determinism or not. I don't know how to tell that. It APPEARS to me that it isn't.. but.. well, I can't see how that can be SHOWN to be , one way or another.

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.

So you have learned the technique of lucid dreaming.. but did have the choice to? or is that choice just an illusion?