52 replies to this topic

[Exodi]

Do we?

For example, we can choose 1 thing over another, and it feels like we can do that, like choosing to reply.
However, doesn't that decision come from how you were raised and the structure and wiring of your brain?
Is free will just an illusion?
But when it comes down to it, does it really matter if its an illusion or not? We feel like we can choose, and thats pretty much it, right?

Tell me ur responses!

[jonnykun]

i had this discussion in my psych class awhile ago..
personally free will is my opinion. human beings are complex, and to think that we have no control over our decisions is oversimplifying the complexity of the brain. plus, what would that mean socially? imagine if everybody's alibi was "i had no control over my actions".

[PeonYourLawn]

I exercise my free will everyday. Posting in this forum is of my free will!

[Kuraz]

I would say, "free" will is not totally free, of course.

When making a decision, you will have to consider its side effects (like playing Neopets with cheat programme you may get frozen ). basically you have to right to think, but you may not want to ac it out.
That's the idea :]

[kittycat]

Subconscious versus conscious.

We won't know what your decision was unless you're hooked up to a scanner.

[Melchoire]

If our brains follow the laws of physics then free will should simply be an illusion. But I think there's a spiritual side to it; so I do believe in free will.

[Devilfish]

Actually, there is some scientific proof that what we know as free will is mostly an illusion. In short, certain parts of the brain light up on a scan before we make the concious decision to act. I'll admit the details of this are largly beyond me and neuroscience is a relatively new branch, but it's scary all th same. We're not even close to understanding how our brains work, but to answer you question in this light; no, it doesn't.

I prefer the philosophical approach, myself. I'm religious, but my faith doesn't have much to say on the concept.

Edited by Devilfish, 30 December 2009 - 02:38 PM.

[unworthy]

It is very hard to say. Sure we always have the option of making our own decision but as it was said previously our decisions are based on consequences/responsibilities/effects. Just because we can chose yes or no does not mean that we will chose either or. Just because you have the option to kill yourself "most people" are not able to. I do not mean physically but mentally we are normally programmed not to kill ourselves for no reason so we will be stopped by ourselves in many different ways. It is kind of like free speech. You can go to a church and swear and yell, but for most people it really isn't an option because of their social status they do not want to lose, or the consequences of being an idiot. I find it hard to put into words but I guess it is what Devilfish mentioned that free will is an illlusion. Depending on the person there are always things that just "aren't possible".

Of course somebody can just say that if a person really wanted to do something they can even though there are negative consequences. What I mean is that the common person does not have the option although there are some exceptions. Free will resides within the brain because you are allowed to think about whatever you want. Turning that though into action is where the drawbacks are.

[LittleOne]

no because everything we choose to do is ion someway influenced by something such as friends, family, society, peer pressure religion etc no matter what we do there are always rules and laws so no we have not got full free will

[phalkon]

i have chosen not to hunt you down and kill your soul, despite what the voices tell me. that's my free will

Spoiler

[LittleOne]

the voices sound like smurfs lol

[unworthy]

i have chosen not to hunt you down and kill your soul, despite what the voices tell me. that's my free will

Spoiler

But is it because you would go to jail, or you would have to not get caught or you do not have means of transportation or a way to find them. If you decided not to kill them even though you felt like killing because you purely didn't feel like and no other reason at all then I guess it would be free will. But then again If you really didn't want to kill them to begin with then it wouldn't really be an example of free will because you are chosing not to do something you were not going to do anyways which is essentially not doing anything at all.

[MJForster]

Actually, there is some scientific proof that what we know as free will is mostly an illusion. In short, certain parts of the brain light up on a scan before we make the concious decision to act. I'll admit the details of this are largly beyond me and neuroscience is a relatively new branch, but it's scary all th same. We're not even close to understanding how our brains work, but to answer you question in this light; no, it doesn't.

I prefer the philosophical approach, myself. I'm religious, but my faith doesn't have much to say on the concept.

That's precisely what I was going to mention. It kind of spooked me out the first time I saw a program about that kind of science, they were able to precisely predict the outcome of the decision before the subject made the concious conclusion. Now I feel like watching "The Minority Report"...

But those developments aside, I believe many people act upon the ideal, morals and beliefs that they hold dearest to them, and in turn, most of those same qualities are instilled by those around them, it is part of the nature vs. nurture debate. There are things inside all of us that are so deeply engrained and they will not move, undoubtedly affecting our future judgement, and those beliefs were ingrained by friends, family, colleagues, and any other number of acquaintances. I do, however, like to think that an intrinsic growth can occur within someone where they can gain the strength, wisdom, WHATEVER it is that they need to be able to act of their own accord, breaking the cycle of illusory freedom.

[artificial]

Yeah I've always argued that free will is just a human construct, or an illusion if you may. I'm no scientist, but it appears the only two factors that influence your decisions are:

1. Genetic makeup (DNA)
2. Memories (life experiences)

Even more interesting is if you introduce the concept of free will in to religious and robotic debates. Arguing there is no such thing as freewill is pretty much a kick in the proverbial balls of almost all organised religion. Also, if you built and programmed a robot to look and behave like a human (i.e. programmed to use past experiences in its decision making), then when do we draw the line between what is human and what is not? What would be considered humane and inhumane?

[Mr. Hobo]

Yeah I've always argued that free will is just a human construct, or an illusion if you may. I'm no scientist, but it appears the only two factors that influence your decisions are:

1. Genetic makeup (DNA)
2. Memories (life experiences)

Even more interesting is if you introduce the concept of free will in to religious and robotic debates. Arguing there is no such thing as freewill is pretty much a kick in the proverbial balls of almost all organised religion. Also, if you built and programmed a robot to look and behave like a human (i.e. programmed to use past experiences in its decision making), then when do we draw the line between what is human and what is not? What would be considered humane and inhumane?

I agree with you. Though this would be a dangerous view if a lot of people shared it. As is people don't really take responsibility for their actions

[Devilfish]

Personally I don't care a whole lot about what people think, but why they think it. So, all you people who said, yes, it exists... Why do you believe that?

[Zhuris]

As far as I believe, we don't have a single ounce of the stuff. You can understand the reasons behind choosing to do something, but you can't actually choose it in the first place. You brain and the neurons within, obey the laws of physics the same as everything else. Cause and effect.

There must have been a reason that neuron fired - you didn't "choose" for it to do that, it did that because of the other stuff happening in the brain. You go back far enough and it'll be your senses. Each thing just triggers the next, and you can't change this in any way. You can feel like you made a choice - but really, whatever happened was the only possible outcome. Why? Because that's what happened. It couldn't have happened any other way, simply because it didn't.

This is probably quite relevant: http://en.wikipedia....iki/Determinism

I don't take psychology or philosophy or anything along those lines, but I believe that link describes the way I see everything.

Determinism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences.^[1] Determinists believe the universe is fully governed by causal laws resulting in only one possible state at any point in time

-Zhuris

[Devilfish]

I did take psychology and sociology and determinism is horribly out of date. It's psychology, not hard science, so it really can't say anthing about neurological processes (in fact it was conceived ages before decent neuroscience was even possible). It depends on how you want to see the world, of course, but most psychologists have moved on from determinism a long time ago. Be careful with theories like that. It's one of the predecessors of eugenics.

Edited by Devilfish, 08 January 2010 - 09:53 AM.

[vin]

hmm. this is an interesting debate.


we've discussed this in pyschology class before. ~


i believe its more that we have a sense of free will. past experiences, traumatic events, family, friends, peers, and other things can influence some of our decisions.


i definitely don't think we are just like machines and manufactured to do certain things at certain times. we do have a little bit of influence on what we are doing.

unexpected things in your life pop up all the time and i believe you exercise your free will on how you decide to cope with these events. like for example, on 9/9/09 i got in a really bad car accident. i was driving my friend home and i ended up totaling my first car. yeah it definitely taught me a huge lesson in life ... but i don't think it was necessarily meant to happen.. i made the decision to turn left without paying much attention to the car coming straight for me... nothing forced me to make that turn.. so i'm not sure. i believe that we do have free will. idk thats just my opinion though. lol if any of that made any sense ~

[Zhuris]

I did take psychology and sociology and determinism is horribly out of date. It's psychology, not hard science, so it really can't say anthing about neurological processes (in fact it was conceived ages before decent neuroscience was even possible). It depends on how you want to see the world, of course, but most psychologists have moved on from determinism a long time ago. Be careful with theories like that. It's one of the predecessors of eugenics.

Do you know of something that would better describe my beliefs? I've not really known them by any name - I just believe every single event is triggered strictly by cause and effect, with no exceptions and no deviations. I'm a very science/maths-type person, which is probably the basis of this.

As for eugenics.. it's probably not a good idea for anyone to discuss that on an open internet forum. Needless to say, I'm strongly against it.

Slightly off-topic post, sorry.

[jonnykun]

Do you know of something that would better describe my beliefs? I've not really known them by any name - I just believe every single event is triggered strictly by cause and effect, with no exceptions and no deviations. I'm a very science/maths-type person, which is probably the basis of this.

As for eugenics.. it's probably not a good idea for anyone to discuss that on an open internet forum. Needless to say, I'm strongly against it.

Slightly off-topic post, sorry.

that's called determinism , that everything is caused by an event, and that we are made up of a chain of events. which is the opposite end on the spectrum of free will.

oh sorry i didn't read the posts a while back that linked determinism. ignore then, sorry! but i do think this is the best way to define what youre trying to say.

Edited by jonnykun, 08 January 2010 - 10:54 AM.

[Devilfish]

As for eugenics.. it's probably not a good idea for anyone to discuss that on an open internet forum.

Why not? The worst that can happen is someone disagrees. (Or you say something very illegal and end up being ass-raped with a cattle prod by the CIA, but that's a whole different story). I can see how the basic idea of eugenics appealed to the people (and scientists) of the time. But that's why things like determinism and the pure scientific approach are dangerous things. Because rationaly speaking, there's no logical reason why we shouldn't execute the disabled, the criminals and other 'undesirables'. See World War II.

So, back on topic, I'm all for the scientific approach to these questions, but we have a duty not to forget that man can't survive on reason alone. If you can't integrate science into your everyday life and make it work for you and society as a whole, there's little point to it.

Edited by Devilfish, 08 January 2010 - 11:15 AM.

[Zhuris]

Why not? The worst that can happen is someone disagrees. (Or you say something very illegal and end up being ass-raped with a cattle prod by the CIA, but that's a whole different story). I can see how the basic idea of eugenics appealed to the people (and scientists) of the time. But that's why things like determinism and the pure scientific approach are dangerous things. Because rationaly speaking, there's no logical reason why we shouldn't execute the disabled, the criminals and other 'undesirables'. See World War II.

Anything where people disagree has the potential to start a flame war. I don't get involved with them (And try my best not to cause them), and I'm not negatively affected by them as such. But they can very quickly take a thread off-topic and locked. Once that's happened, the question the OP asked has been stifled because some people can't agree to disagree over the internet. That means ruining someone else's thread, which I don't wish to do.

Also, please define undesirable Who gets to decide who's undesirable and who isn't? The person in power.. which opens up the whole politics can of worms - on a thread that was originally intended to be a discussion about free will, people will possibly end up throwing profanity and offensive remarks around because of someone else's political views.

I see nothing wrong with discussing ideas and concepts that might seem morally ambiguous, but that doesn't stop others from getting offended if things get off-topic and escalate too much.

[Mr. Hobo]

I did take psychology and sociology and determinism is horribly out of date. It's psychology, not hard science, so it really can't say anthing about neurological processes (in fact it was conceived ages before decent neuroscience was even possible). It depends on how you want to see the world, of course, but most psychologists have moved on from determinism a long time ago. Be careful with theories like that. It's one of the predecessors of eugenics.

What's wrong with eugenics?

[Devilfish]

Anything where people disagree has the potential to start a flame war. I don't get involved with them (And try my best not to cause them), and I'm not negatively affected by them as such. But they can very quickly take a thread off-topic and locked. Once that's happened, the question the OP asked has been stifled because some people can't agree to disagree over the internet. That means ruining someone else's thread, which I don't wish to do.
...
I see nothing wrong with discussing ideas and concepts that might seem morally ambiguous, but that doesn't stop others from getting offended if things get off-topic and escalate too much.

Oh, I see what you mean. It's true, you need to bite your tongue sometimes. I definitely don't want to ruin this thread, but it's always a shame if one or two loud-mouthed people start flaming about what was an interesting discussion. I don't like avoiding sensitive topics just because someone might be offended. That's why I try (emphasis on try) to be as careful as possible about what I say, but I will say it if I feel strongly enough about it.

But I am a little sorry about the derail. OP, feel free to kick me out of the thread

Also, please define undesirable

Absolutely not. In the context of my argument, I meant those who oppose the goals of the leading body (government, democratic consensus, values of the majority, whatever). It's completely subjective.

What's wrong with eugenics?

Many, many things. In a nutshell, eugenics took darwinism too far and preached selective breeding for humans. In the context of the era (right before WWII in fact, there's a nice give-away) that simply meant that people deemed 'undersirable' by the governing class should be removed from the gene pool. This included disabled people, criminals, pretty much anyone who wasn't white, but also the poor, because in those days the idea was that the poor were poor because they were not capable of hard work and lacked the qualities a decent human being should have. Fanatic eugenicists (or whetever they're called in English) wanted to sterelize huge chuncks of the population. This actually happened to the black population in th US for a short while. And the there was that nasty little Austrian dude, name escapes me at the moment, something with a pure race and a bunker...

So, you know, if you really feel there's nothing wrong with that, I really can't help you.