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Free will

shoe70 said:
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The idea is that the 'you' that makes these decisions is nothing but an illusion created from years of conditioned behavior coupled with genetics and whatnot.
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Yeah, how would we know? It's the old "brains in glass jars" argument -- that all of this stuff ... the world ... or the matrix ... or whatever is just all of us floating in glass jars entertaining ourselves with the idea of it being real.

We think we make choices. But most stuff just happens and then we busy ourselves making excuses for why we 'chose' to do it that way.
 
Mentalhead said:
I made this thread because I wanted to. However, I did not CHOOSE to want to. Since the factor that made me choose was me wanting to, and I didn't choose that, I didn't choose to make it.
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People have desires to do things all the time - but to act (or not act) on them is their decision. So, the free will lies in the decision.

So although desire is the motive behind the act, the end action depends on the free will of the person to will the body and mind into action. Ignoring this link breaks the chain of causation.

Also one is free to choose the intent behind any action they do.

The 'there is no free will' arguement is flawed, as it can't demonstrate what external force connects to our body/mind and forces us to act against our wills.

Trying to blame our acts on external causes is a defence mechanism of the ego - projection.
 
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So although desire is the motive behind the act, the end action depends on the free will of the person to will the body and mind into action. Ignoring this link breaks the chain of causation.
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Not true at all. In fact, what we are describing is causation.

The argument may be flawed, but not for the reasons you gave.

People have desires to do things all the time - but to act (or not act) on them is their decision. So, the free will lies in the decision.
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What makes the decision? Something outside the brain? If it's within the brain, as I believe, then it can be explained through the mechanical process of determinism.
 
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So....to everyone who believes in free will, I ask you this:

What could a conscious choice be based on other than predetermined factors? If I can "choose" to do something, what is the choice based on? Is it based on what makes sense, what you want the outcome to be? Or is it just an unknown factor that effects the decision? It seems to me that former would eliminate the choice, because you don't choose what makes sense, and the latter is just random.
 
The biggest problem in these discussions, and I saw a few people mention this, is the lack of a clear definition for the word "you". A lot of people think of the conscious experience as "I", the entity making the decisions. I think this is a flawed definition.
It makes much more sense to take into account all the genetic factors involved in your development, your experiences stored in memory, your current mood, etc, when defining the self. Whats interesting is that we can see how physical structures and chemical events in the brain represent these things. structures of neurons that fire together can be thought of as symbols. All of these symbols are interconnected to millions of others, in various ways. Neural structures (symbols) that fire together, wire together. This tendency to fall into habit is something which greatly influences our actions. Most of the activity in the brain is at a subconscious level, but this activity almost certainly is contributing to your decision making. When you take all these factors into account, its easier to see why the experience of choice is not an entity unto itself, but a mental manifestation of an extremely complex physical process.
 
Dyno_oz said:
People have desires to do things all the time - but to act (or not act) on them is their decision. So, the free will lies in the decision.

So although desire is the motive behind the act, the end action depends on the free will of the person to will the body and mind into action. Ignoring this link breaks the chain of causation.

Also one is free to choose the intent behind any action they do.

The 'there is no free will' arguement is flawed, as it can't demonstrate what external force connects to our body/mind and forces us to act against our wills.

Trying to blame our acts on external causes is a defence mechanism of the ego - projection.
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Exactly what I was getting at, thanks.
 
there has to be free will, otherwise, childmolesters and drug addicts are not responsible for their behavior, and i can't accept that.
 
^Your accepting has no bearing on a truth, in any case.

No offense meant...
 
i know that. i wasn't implying it did! just adding all i can really add on the subject.

that comment aside, i still believe we do have free will. i'll add more later
 
The immortal words of the world's wizest man:

"I'm a victim of coicumstance, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk" -- Curly
 
DarthMom said:
there has to be free will, otherwise, childmolesters and drug addicts are not responsible for their behavior, and i can't accept that.
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no, "they" would still be responsible. read over my definition of the self again and try to apply it to this situation. What makes a cilld molester? Some combination of nature and nurture led to a human being willing to molest children. It doesn't really matter the what, why, and how of this combination, it simply is. Our society has decided that a human brain willing to do these things is not fit to live in society, and so they need to be removed. True, the conscious experience of the child molester did not CHOOSE to be that way, but this in no way negates the fact that we dont want them in our society.
 
elemenohpee said:
no, "they" would still be responsible. read over my definition of the self again and try to apply it to this situation. What makes a cilld molester? Some combination of nature and nurture led to a human being willing to molest children. It doesn't really matter the what, why, and how of this combination, it simply is. Our society has decided that a human brain willing to do these things is not fit to live in society, and so they need to be removed. True, the conscious experience of the child molester did not CHOOSE to be that way, but this in no way negates the fact that we dont want them in our society.
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but he did CHOOSE to take actions on his feelings, which makes him directly responsible. there could be two people who have the same desires, one acts on it, the other doesn't. we wouldn't put both people in jail, just the person that CHOOSE to act on his desires.
 
what he said.

i am not denying that there were underlying events that dould have led to being prone to that behavior, but i am not a hard determinist and do NOT believe it isn't a choice.
 
doesntmatter said:
but he did CHOOSE to take actions on his feelings, which makes him directly responsible. there could be two people who have the same desires, one acts on it, the other doesn't. we wouldn't put both people in jail, just the person that CHOOSE to act on his desires.
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Well, 'hard determinism' disagrees.
 
^...

Noone argued that...

My point is that he wasn't attacking the theory's merit at all...
 
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DarthMom said:
what he said.

i am not denying that there were underlying events that dould have led to being prone to that behavior, but i am not a hard determinist and do NOT believe it isn't a choice.
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It IS a choice, a choice that is made based on those underlying factors. In other words, if we were to go back and run through the scenario a million times, with the exact same initial conditions each time, the outcome would always be the same. There is no supernatural ego "choosing" anything, the choice is made based on the neural structure of that person. If you include this in your definition of the self, then its fine to say that person A chose to do action B. What doesn't make sense is to say that person A could have chosen between action B and action C.
 
no, i understand the basics of hard determinism, but do not agree or accept it. if you really believe in it, you can't support punishment of crimes, no matter how violent.
 
DarthMom said:
no, i understand the basics of hard determinism, but do not agree or accept it. if you really believe in it, you can't support punishment of crimes, no matter how violent.
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Punishment shouldn't be about making people pay for their choice so that you can feel good. It should be about teaching someone not to do something, and making an example so that others won't do the same thing. Free will aside, punishment exists to lower crime. It has nothing to do with determinism.
 
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