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Free will

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Mentalhead

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Joined
Sep 28, 2006
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115
A few months ago, I realized that I don't believe in free will. Basically, my train of thought goes like this:

Any given choice that I make is based on a number of factors. Some of these might be past personal experiences, advice or stories told by others, information about the situation I'm in, personality traits/brain chemistry, and (naturally) the situation itsself. However, I can't control any of these factors. So, since I don't control any of the factors leading up to the choice, I can only conclude that I don't actually control the decision that I make.

Of course, this basically disproves any religion, so I've denounced Christianity since then. The whole thing has really been bugging me for a while.

How do you view free will? Anyone have advice for how I can deal with the idea that I have no control over anything I do, or any evidence to disprove me? Please share.
 
I agree with you. You should read up on determinism, it's philosophy dealing with this subject. Arthur Schopenhauer is a philosopher that believes exactly this, but there are others, too. Here is a nice little theory, called Laplace's Demon:

"We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."

Here's a good quote from Schopenhauer:
"Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."

Determinism on Wikipedia
 
Here's a good quote from Einstein:

"In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralysing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humour, above all, has its due place."
 
That's some pretty interesting stuff, I'll definitely read up on detirminism.

Does the idea of having no choice ever bother you?
 
Determinism is a circular argument.

I believe "everything happens for a reason,"
but our conscious choice is a part of that "reason"

We might not
have 100% free will.

We can't stop time.

We can't fly at will.

We can't go without food and water for weeks.

But even the weakest humans
have pseudo-free will-
the choice to wallow in dispair,
addiction, and non-choiceness.

THEY CHOOSE NOT TO CHOOSE

You must CHOOSE to choose@

Those mentally developed people
(whom I strive to emulate)
show the absolute openess of the future.

REALITY IS WHAT
YOU CAN MANIFEST

Can't you see the choices?

In Each blurry instant
there is 4 thoughts
In your mind

You choose
which one to follow.
YOU as the observer/witness El-ect,
which thought to pursue
El = GOD

In our conscious choices
we are godlike.

There are so many
choices, possibilities,
opportunities, paths,
adventures, potentials,
endless ideas to learn.

If you want some good reading
on how quantum chaos in the brain
generates Free Will, read this book:
The Quantum Brain by Jeffrey Satinover

or read On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins
for more information about
the actual structure of your mody (body+mind).

Yes you ARE your modal structure,
but your modal structure has evolved
to allow the ability
to CONSCIOUSLY CHANGE YOURSELF.

METAPROGRAMMING

If
you
can't
yet see the infinite choices,
don't stop reading...
Don't stop reading...
Don't stop reading...

WARNING....
NOW STOP READING!!!!
hahehehealajlksdjqlkwjedfqkjflkjewfselkfjwlkefjwlkjevw
Mind reset rebirth recall recreation
re-MEMBER Mind Reset Start

Start by analyzing
the basic duality
of any information
processor as yourself:
On-Off
0/1
here/there
Memory-Prediction
Input-Output

Move onto the trinity:
Generation
Operation
Destruction

Don't stop there!

Create the PhLucking Phuture each instant!
 
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Mentalhead said:
Does the idea of having no choice ever bother you?
Click to expand...
once you come to the conclusion that you have no choice, the universe doesnt suddenly change. it's not as if you all of a sudden turn into a zombie. things are still the same. you still have as much 'choice' as you did before you came up with the conclusion, and wishing for more 'choice' doesnt really make any sense

in sum, who cares?
 
But even the weakest humans
have pseudo-free will-
the choice to wallow in dispair,
addiction, and non-choiceness.
Click to expand...
i dont think you're thinking along the same lines as the original poster. whether you 'choose not to choose' or take full control of your life with lots of motivation, either way determinism states that your actions (and thoughts, beliefs, motivations, etc) are predictable (given sufficient data) and based solely on physical laws (your mental apparatus is made of atoms, which act in concordance with specific laws, so the question is are you really choosing anything 'your'self?)
 
while you/we are conditioned creatures of habit,
you/we are free to like things
and to gravitate towards those
by sculpting your/our habits.

it is not like jujitsu, more like a tanker turning in the ocean.
 
^redgreenvines, could you explain again, please? I tried to read that a few times, and the best I came out with was "you can freely desire and alter your habits to lead you towards them", but I'm not even sure of that.

What do you mean?
 
qwedsa said:
i dont think you're thinking along the same lines as the original poster
Click to expand...

You are right about that. And I am glad I'm not, because I KNOW i have choice.
I could have chosen not to write this post and return back to my house because I am quite hungry. But I CHOSE not to, because the self-organizing & reiterative patterns of atoms/molecules/cells composing my being employed my META-PROGRAMMING abilities.

Ideas are not made of matter. They are made of patterns of matter which represent different things to each human. Therefore we are free to choose on the basis of abstract self-organizing patterns.

We have self-control, because of more complex brains and the effect of the cultural environment. Animals can't choose to control themselves. They live in the present. We can choose to dream of the past, choose to dream of the future, or choose to enjoy the present.

Atoms are made of ~99% ABSENCE- empty space
and 1% composed of PRESENCE- electrons protons and neutrons.

Your mental apparati are made of organ systems.
Your mental apparati are made of organs.
Your mental apparati are made of tissues.
Your mental apparati are made of cells.
Your mental apparati are made of molecules.
Your mental apparati are made of atoms.
Your mental apparati are composed of quarks and gluons.

Life amplifies and utilizes chaos from the smallest scales
to the most abstract conceptual meta-programming
neural levels (prefrontal cortex) to produce free will.

Life consists of massively parallel self-organizing systems
which have evolved over 3.7 billion years
optimizing itself through trial and error
utilizing such phenomena as quantum tunnelling
Where a particle goes through a supposedly SOLID barrier
This 3.7 billion year biological process finally resulted in our
HUMAN abillity to consciously avoid determinism.

We can consciously choose to change evolution.
Free will is what sets us apart from the rest of life.
Come on...

I could choose to committ suicide for a certain purpose.
But I'd rather not.

I believe There's a crack in the cosmic egg.

Don't get me wrong. "We are machines, but we are not deterministic machines.
Pure chance, the progenitor of free-will, can only take place as a result of
quantum indeterminism at the atomic level. At the instant of decoherence, what we think of as consciousness, the collapse of the superposition of states creates
information and reality. Life, the product of this reality, has in turn adapted to
take advantage of quantum effects, by amplifying them and creating ever more complex life forms. Life, as Jeffrey Satinover envisions it, is an information creating, quantum machine. "

READ the Quantum Brain by Satinover. It shows from an empirical scientific framework how free will evolves from multiple scales of self-organizing reiterative systems. Then come talk to me.
 
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“To dream anything that you want to dream. That's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.”

-Bernard Edmonds

You cannot reduce it all to atom-pebbles bouncing around.
Not even the most grumpy scientist can justify it.
There is too much autopoeisis (http://www.kheper.net/topics/systems_theory/autopoeisis.html)

It's all about where you choose to look.
Which thought do you feed?
What will you do with your thought train?

You are your own God!
 
Determinism may as well be true but it doesn't really affect anything in one's everyday life. Unlike Christianity or hedonism, or whatever, it is not a philosophy one can live by, because that would be ridiculous. It might cause you to take things less seriously and not dwell on your 'failures' which is a good thing, but I doubt you can take it much further than that.

Also, as far as we're talking about the laws of the universe governing our actions, keep in mind that in quantum mechanics, nothing is predetermined, but rather left up to chance. You can never pinpoint the exact location and velocity of an electron (you can, but only to a certain degree of accuracy), because you change the values of both simply by observing them. This of course still leaves no room for volition as we are now random particles bouncing around every which way rather than just gears in a great big machine. Just something I thought I'd throw into the discussion.
 
Good points shoe. But are we fundamentally particles or are we defined by self-organizing relationships?

self-creation -- the notion that a given system's origin is somehow determined by its character or the specific circumstances in which it occurs.
self-configuration --the notion that a given system actively determines the arrangement of its constituent parts.
self-regulation -- the notion that a given system actively controls the course of its internal transformations, typically with respect to one or more parameters.
self-steering -- the notion that a given system actively controls its course of activity within some external environment or a general set of possible states.
self-maintenance --the notion that a given system actively preserves itself, its form, and / or its functional status over time.
self-(re-)production -- the notion that a given system generates itself anew or produces other systems identical to itself.
self-reference. -- the notion that the significance of a given system's character or behavior is meaningful only with respect to itself.
 
Mentalhead said:
A few months ago, I realized that I don't believe in free will. Basically, my train of thought goes like this:
...

Of course, this basically disproves any religion, so I've denounced Christianity since then. The whole thing has really been bugging me for a while.
Click to expand...

Don't dismiss Christianity so easily. In fact the life of Marin Luther took its dramatic change away from Catholicism precisely because of the question of free will. And he came to almost the exact conclusion as you. You can read his debate with Erasmus in "Bondage of the Will" over whether free will exists. On his death bed, Luther suggested that all of his literary work be burned except for Bondage of the Will. He believed that a healthy skepticism of free will was needed for correct understanding of Scripture. The essence of "reformed" protestant theology is rooted in Luthers understanding of free will. You can buy Bondage of the Will at any bookstore or read it here . . .

http://www.truecovenanter.com/truelutheran/luther_bow.html

Mike
 
we have free will

we are extremely influenced
but we still have the possibility to randomly choose between 2 similar options

Atoms are made of ~99% ABSENCE- empty space
and 1% composed of PRESENCE- electrons protons and neutrons.
Click to expand...
i had calculated with the hydrogen atom, and i think it was even 99,999999999999%
 
vegan said:
we have free will
we are extremely influenced
but we still have the possibility to randomly choose between 2 similar options
Click to expand...

A great summary, thanks vegan.
I need to work on simplicity- the ultimate sophistication. -davinci
 
vegan said:
we have free will

we are extremely influenced
but we still have the possibility to randomly choose between 2 similar options
Click to expand...
What chooses?
 
Mentalhead said:
A few months ago, I realized that I don't believe in free will. Basically, my train of thought goes like this:

Any given choice that I make is based on a number of factors. Some of these might be past personal experiences, advice or stories told by others, information about the situation I'm in, personality traits/brain chemistry, and (naturally) the situation itsself. However, I can't control any of these factors. So, since I don't control any of the factors leading up to the choice, I can only conclude that I don't actually control the decision that I make.

Of course, this basically disproves any religion, so I've denounced Christianity since then. The whole thing has really been bugging me for a while.

How do you view free will? Anyone have advice for how I can deal with the idea that I have no control over anything I do, or any evidence to disprove me? Please share.
Click to expand...

I've gone back and forth on this issue myself quite a bit.

On the one hand, Universe does seem to be a deterministic place where one action leads to another to another, thus meaning that all action is predictable, and that all desition has therefore been preordained.

On the other hand, if you look really really closely at surtain subatomic particles, their behavior seems totaly random and chaotic, and since all material is made from these particals, maybe this means that Universe is actualy only statisticaly deterministic, leaving room for completely independant desition making.

For me, I think "to be or not to be" really is the question for any person faced with a desision. You are constantly bombarded with problems all day, and while you may not have a choise of which desisions or solutions you are presented with, you do have a surtain degree of control around which ones yo chose to comply with or not, and around how you chose to conceptualise it. To me, its not so much a question of "soup or salad?", but rather "soup, or not soup? salad, or not salad?"
 
^These things may just seem random because we don't completley understand them yet. I am in agreement with the quote that is my signature... since it's not enabled, I'll paste it here for you.

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." ~Carl Jung
 
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