Do we have free will ?

[Someone here]

3 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Well, that's all kind of belief though right? When I look at the sky, I am the sky. I'm not human. When I look at a bird, I am the bird. The perspective makes it even more bad ass. The most beautiful animal in the forest can't see itself. 

I don't understand. You say when "I" look at such and such..aren't you implying that you are the looker ?

But even more so ..if you deny your personal identity then you are automatically denying free will .

It's like being in a flow state ..you lose yourself in the activities and you become one with the object /environment.  So how is that an indication of free will ?

6 minutes ago, Mandy said:

watch the youtube video I just linked and tell me otherwise.

OK. 

6 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Doesn't food taste the best after you've been hungry for a while? Would you want to cover over your fuel gauge in your car because it's annoying when it gets close to empty or would you rather know when it's time to gas up? Is not guidance, hunger, pain, all of it wanted? Preferable?

Yes you appreciate the thing more when you are deprived from it for a long time.  But I don't think  that's a good argument. If anything it shows that for equilibrium to happen we MUST suffer first before we get to the goodies. Which makes Me wonder  why it has to be this way? Couldn't God have designed the universe that you can enjoy food without getting hungry?  Wouldn’t that be a better universe? 

14 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Isn't that just... magical? Awesome? What am I missing here? 

 

I want the best of both worlds. And that's just what I got. 

 

Not sure I follow.  What exactly is awesome? 

[Phil]

16 minutes ago, Someone here said:

OK. My answer is yes .

What's your point? 

That free will is the empty room. 

 

[Someone here]

@Phil 😀

[Mandy]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

I don't understand. You say when "I" look at such and such..aren't you implying that you are the looker ?

There isn't a separate looker. I think you pointed this out earlier. 

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

So how is that an indication of free will ?

It's not. 

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

 

Yes you appreciate the thing more when you are deprived from it for a long time.  But I don't think  that's a good argument. If anything it shows that for equilibrium to happen we MUST suffer first before we get to the goodies. Which makes Me wonder  why it has to be this way? Couldn't God have designed the universe that you can enjoy food without getting hungry?  Wouldn’t that be a better universe? 

Did you have to suffer to like the sport team real madrid? 

 

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

What exactly is awesome? 

The sport team real madrid and the color purple and that we just plain old appreciate those things. It's almost like the love was there before the specifics. 

[Someone here]

25 minutes ago, Mandy said:

It's not.

So your take is that we don't have free will ?

26 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Did you have to suffer to like the sport team real madrid?

No .but that's just because of the nature of this specific example . Same as enjoying art and science and philosophy. I've always been fascinated by these things without suffering in order to enjoy them . But I think you are mixing two unmixable (I don't know if that's a word lol 😆) things here .

I was talking about cravings and desires and needs.  So an example of needs would be drinking water. You would have to first suffer the thirst before enjoying drinking. Etc . If you have a sweet tooth ..you would have to first feel and experience the craving before it gets satisfied by eating candy. 

 

Anyways ..I think we are going in tangents and veering off from the original question. Which is free will .

This thread has 5 pages already and still nobody have given a clear answer to the question .is it that hard?  I dont think so .

I think I have a good argument that free will doesn't exist ..if its defined as the ability to have done otherwise,it  is not logically possible. All events must either be caused or uncaused, these are the only logical possibilities. In a universe where all events have prior causes, Free Will cannot exist as every outcome is completely determined by the given set of conditions; there is only one possible outcome. In a universe where some events do not have causes, Free Will still cannot exist as uncaused events cannot be willed into existence by a person, they would happen at random for no reason. These exhaust all possibilities, and therefore Free Will does not exist.

So I would appreciate it if you show what are some faults I my line of reasoning.  If you could do that would highly appreciate it 🙏 

Because I'm really stuck with this nihilistic view on no free will which is related to almost everything in my life .

42 minutes ago, Mandy said:

It's almost like the love was there before the specifics. 

I need an awakening to Love . I'm pretty much materialist(stage orange) in my thinking and I think these notions of love are woo woo new age BS . But of course I could be wrong and I'm probably wrong .even though I never experienced unconditional love even once in my life . The love was always attached to an object or an experience like a beautiful woman or a beautiful sunset or a tasty meal etc. 

[nurthur11]

4 hours ago, Mandy said:

😂 The I is where I went... _____ wrong? 

Yes yes!

[Aware Wolf]

23 hours ago, Someone here said:

So please let's cut the shit and be as brief and precise as possible..do I have free will or not ? I'm expecting a straightforward answer (a yes or no answer ) because we can go on like this until tomorrow and still not arrive at a reasonable conclusion. 

 

Great thread. I was surprised to see couple pages added since my last visit. More so, since on p2 , I thought @Someone hereon p2 or p3 had a great post that summed up everything. Done as far as reflection. From what I read, I think you got it. 

 

My straightforward answer is No, probably we dont have Free Will. For the reasons you mention and I mentioned on my p2 post. But I think in inquiry it's good to ask questions. What do we mean by Free Will? (you posted a definition but is that true in all cases, could there be a free will lite version, another definition?). In fact, Daniel Dennett criticized Sam Harris rejection of free will because Harris relied only upon the popular (dictionary) definition of free will. Evidently there's others. And the definitions can vary widely. 

 

And what are the implications of having a free will or a belief in one, vs. not having a free will or a belief in one? 

 

For example, @Someone hereyou mention that if there's no free will nothing matters. I don't agree here.

 

You used a thinking of a movie example to buttress your claims of no free will. Sam Harris does the same. He uses a "think of a movie" thought experiement. Sam has a book "Free Will" that I think you'd like. But in no way does not having a free will or a belief in a free will make one believe "nothing matters". It doesn't follow your conclusion. It reminds me of theists who say atheists who don't believe in God have no morality. Doesn't follow. In fact, atheists do have a moral code. I think this book and Sam's talks on free will would be up your alley. In your reply to me, you mention about how a belief in no free will might alter how we deal with criminals.  I agree.

 

Since our legal system assumes they committed a crime not because they had to, or were forced to, but out of their own free will and choice. Sam gives the example of the Texas tower shooter, Charles Whitman who murdered over a dozen people and wounded dozens others. In a note, he asked to be autoposied. In the autopsy , they found a brain tumor. Whitman suspected there was something wrong with him and there was. So, Harris asks, we're probably a bit more understanding on why Whitman did it. He had a brain injury that messed him up. In sentencing there might be a bit more understanding or leniency in dealing with him (had he lived). Sometimes lawyers for child abusers will bring up their client's own past history of them being abused. It doesn't excuse them but maybe they cease being a 100% horrible villain in the jury's eyes. Maybe they get 35 years instead of 45. Or maybe like the Menendez brothers they get off entirely. 

 

I believe there's an illusion of free will. I believe many of decisions may actually be made in some brain black box that I have no conscious knowledge of. There's a lot of studies that confirm this. Look at split brain studies. I believe that wherever this decision gets made -- my actions matter. My choices matter. @Someone hereI think your issue here isn't your POV concerning free will -- but the implications of it. You mention your "nihilistic" view of not having a free will. I would ask you to reflect on the nihilistic implication of no free will. It's not a given. (see sam harris). Is it beneficial? 

 

if you ask me your example, Wolf, which would you rather eat a shit sandwich or a  steak? -- I'm human not a fly. You could predict that I will choose the steak. However there's a chance, however small I could surprise you. Perhaps I'm in a Connor Murphy mode (disciple of Leo Gura) who was eating shit for the good bowel bacteria to replinish gut health. Ew, but there's still a .00001 I've gone a bit down the Leo Gura Connor Murphy rabbithole. Also, I might say "Shit Sandwich" to be funny. That's a much (much?) higher chance. Or maybe I say "Neither. Shit sandwich sounds bad and I'm a Vegan" or "Oh God you're on about Free will again." My point is that it's not as deterministic as one might think. Chomsky used a similar example in his classic rebuttal to BF Skinner's Stimulus-Response behaviorism. 

 

Theres no Free Will, we agree on. But there's some free will definitons that ask "At the last second -- could we have done differently?" And if that's the definition, use the example me and shit sandwich. I could say "Shit sandwich" first to be funny. Then "This is a metaphor for there's no free will isn't it?" then "Seriously if I eat the shit sandwich does that mean there's Free Will now??". If I want to murder someone, could I decide not to at the last moment. Could I think, "This is crazy -- what am I doing!" I once had a cool coworker. His wife was cheating on him. He got a machete and started driving to where his wife's lover lived. On the way, he decided "Fuck this is crazy. Not his fault. And for the sake of his little daughter not worth screwing up his life killing the guy.". And in this thought experiement, does it go the same with Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower shooter. I could see that day him deciding not to. But he's deeply sick. Every day is like a roll of the dice. Maybe next friday the tumor wins and he does it. 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Aware Wolf

[Aware Wolf]

19 hours ago, Mandy said:

@Someone here If you could have it ANY way you wanted... if I'm a magical Genie and I ask you, "do you want free will or no free will?" Which would you choose? 

 

Genies can be tricky. Do I have free will now? What is free will? How will my life change if I don't have free will and I now get it? or Vice versa ? Will it be better or worse? 

 

And what happened to the traditional three wishes thing??

[Someone here]

@Aware Wolf I did read Sam Harris' book on free will .and it was part of few things  convincing me that there is no such thing as free will . Along with the brain studies they did in the last century. Where people were asked to press buttons while there was a device around their head for tracking brain activity..and it was proven clinically that the areas in the brain responsible for taking said descsions fire away by  few milliseconds before the person feels the conscious urge to press the button.

IIt’s a sound argument. The only valid objection to it is that people do actually use “free will” in the compatibilist sense, and there is nothing wrong with that. But this is not a point against the logic of Harris’s argument.

It is not surprising to me that some people, including those writing answers to this question, claim that if determinism were true then moral and legal responsibility would be impossible and the world as we know it would end. The opposite is the case: if determinism were false, that would mean we make at least some decisions for NO REASON. This might not matter if we are choosing a flavour of ice cream, but how could we function, let alone be responsible for our actions, if this were a general rule for making decisions? It may be the case that determinism is not true at the fundamental level, determinism is as illusory as free will ..quantum mechanics have long ago debunked the Newtonian deterministic universe. Its all probability functions at the subatomic level .I personally believe randomness is the case when it comes to our choices in life and how they come about. That's the most reasonable option to me after studying my direct experience carefully enough. 

Morality doesn't make any sense if we don't have free will .because its not our fault when we behave in an unmoralistic way .

[Aware Wolf]

54 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@Aware Wolf I did read Sam Harris' book on free will .and it was part of few things  convincing me that there is no such thing as free will . Along with the brain studies they did in the last century. Where people were asked to press buttons while there was a device around their head for tracking brain activity..and it was proven clinically that the areas in the brain responsible for taking said descsions fire away by  few milliseconds before the person feels the conscious urge to press the button.

IIt’s a sound argument. The only valid objection to it is that people do actually use “free will” in the compatibilist sense, and there is nothing wrong with that. But this is not a point against the logic of Harris’s argument.

 

If you've read Sam, you're ahead of the game then. But your implications are very different than his. Sam doesn't say nothing matters and he doesn't have a nihilistic view of no free will at all. 

 

Okay. I can give you one objection off the top of my head. The brain studies are on relatively trivial decisions (raise your left hand if....). Maybe it's a different system if you ask someone to sit down and ponder an issue and weigh the pros and cons. 

 

 

 

54 minutes ago, Someone here said:

 It may be the case that determinism is not true at the fundamental level, determinism is as illusory as free will ..quantum mechanics have long ago debunked the Newtonian deterministic universe. Its all probability functions at the subatomic level .I personally believe randomness is the case when it comes to our choices in life and how they come about. That's the most reasonable option to me after studying my direct experience carefully enough. 

 

Maybe. I think there's causes and conditions certainly for our actions. How could there not be? Attributing things to quantum works on the very smallest level. The brain is a couple levels above quantum so I dunno. I do think the brain changes and perhaps in a problem you're giving me one neuron branch might on the fly give more weight to a choice than another. Unless one is a ominiscient God -- and can model a human brain that changes on the fly -- you're not going to be able to predict the end results 100%. 

 

 

54 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Morality doesn't make any sense if we don't have free will .because its not our fault when we behave in an unmoralistic way .

 

 

Again, I'm with you until you get to your implications where you delve into nihilism. It's a POV. I don't think it's "True" nor is it beneficial. Zen says there is no good or bad -- but a zen master added "There is good and bad!" 

 

If you rape, murder etc and think it's not your fault because you believe you don't have free will (and you've read Sam Harris)  -- you should reread Harris. Although it might all be turning on the word "fault" maybe the murderer/rapist is never really at "fault" -- but they can still be considered a danger and locked up for plenty of years. Vs. someone with no criminal record, good work history, who one day misidentifies and mistakenly eats some pot brownies and does a strip dance in front of Walmart. As Buddhism says, we are all heirs to our karma (actions). We have to take responsibility for them. Saying we're not at fault seems to me to be dangerously suggesting that we are not responsible for our actions and consequences. Maybe you don't mean that. 

 

See Harris's chapter five on Moral Responsibility. He writes:

 

We need not have any illusions that a causal agent lives within the human mind to recognize that certain people are dangerous. What we condemn most in another person is the conscious intention to do harm. Degrees of guilt can still be judged by reference to the facts of a case: the personality of the accused, his prior offenses, his patterns of association with others, his use of intoxicants, his confessed motives with regard to the victim, etc. If a person’s actions seem to have been entirely out of character, this might influence our view of the risk he now poses to others. If the accused appears unrepentant and eager to kill again, we need entertain no notions of free will to consider him a danger to society.

 

Why is the conscious decision to do another person harm particularly blameworthy? Because what we do subsequent to conscious planning tends to most fully reflect the global properties of our minds—our beliefs, desires, goals, prejudices, etc. If, after weeks of deliberation, library research, and debate with your friends, you still decide to kill the king—well, then killing the king reflects the sort of person you really are. The point is not that you are the ultimate and independent cause of your actions; the point is that, for whatever reason, you have the mind of a regicide.

 

Certain criminals must be incarcerated to prevent them from harming other people. The moral justification for this is entirely straightforward: Everyone else will be better off this way. Dispensing with the illusion of free will allows us to focus on the things that matter—assessing risk, protecting innocent people, deterring crime, etc.

 

Let me post a bit more of Sam here cause I think he expresses it well"

 

One way of viewing the connection between free will and moral responsibility is to note that we generally attribute these qualities to people only with respect to actions that punishment might deter.22 I cannot hold you responsible for behaviors that you could not possibly control. If we made sneezing illegal, for instance, some number of people would break the law no matter how grave the consequences. A behavior like kidnapping, however, seems to require conscious deliberation and sustained effort at every turn—hence it should admit of deterrence. If the threat of punishment could cause you to stop doing what you are doing, your behavior falls squarely within conventional notions of free will and moral responsibility.

 

It may be true that strict punishment—rather than mere containment or rehabilitation—is necessary to prevent certain crimes. But punishing people purely for pragmatic reasons would be very different from the approach that we currently take. Of course, if punishing bacteria and viruses would prevent the emergence of pandemic diseases, we would mete out justice to them as well.

 

A wide variety of human behaviors can be modified by punishments and incentives—and attributing responsibility to people in these contexts is quite natural. It may even be unavoidable as a matter of convention. As the psychologist Daniel Wegner points out, the idea of free will can be a tool for understanding human behavior. To say that someone freely chose to squander his life’s savings at the poker table is to say that he had every opportunity to do otherwise and that nothing about what he did was inadvertent. He played poker not by accident or while in the grip of delusion but because he wanted to, intended to, and decided to, moment after moment. For most purposes, it makes sense to ignore the deep causes of desires and intentions—genes, synaptic potentials, etc.—and focus instead on the conventional outlines of the person. We do this when thinking about our own choices and behaviors—because it’s the easiest way to organize our thoughts and actions. Why did I order beer instead of wine? Because I prefer beer. Why do I prefer it? I don’t know, but I generally have no need to ask. Knowing that I like beer more than wine is all I need to know to function in a restaurant. Whatever the reason, I prefer one taste to the other. Is there freedom in this? None whatsoever. Would I magically reclaim my freedom if I decided to spite my preference and order wine instead? No, because the roots of this intention would be as obscure as the preference itself.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Aware Wolf

[James123]

7 hours ago, Someone here said:

Not sure I follow.  What exactly is awesome? 

Forgetting everything that you know, including yourself and drowning in the ocean of nothingness with love, peace and flowness. Even feelings are illusion. But you gotta have some fun in this so called life. 😊 Trust me when you "die" you won't remember anything, as prior your so called birth. Even while taking going to bathroom, have fun. This is your fun place, just a game 😂♥️LOVE LOVE LOVE ♥️♥️♥️ remember love is an illusion too, just the best feeling. 

[Mandy]

6 hours ago, Someone here said:

So your take is that we don't have free will ?

My original post in this thread, though at first glance hilariously ridiculous and written in all caps, I thought, was quite an eloquent take on the subject. No body can own free will, because things that are owned are inherently no longer free. 🤯

 

Does this mean that we do not have free will, as in is free will a thing other than us? No. There is just no having and no haver. 

 

If there is no separate self, and there is no question of possessing or not possessing, what happens to the question? What happens if we switch the words "free" with unconditional and "will" with love, because desire without the condition of time becomes love. What I actually am is unconditional love, therefore I do not have unconditional love, I am unconditional love. 

6 hours ago, Someone here said:

This thread has 5 pages already and still nobody have given a clear answer to the question .is it that hard?  I dont think so .

You've dismissed nonduality, or what might seem like paradox, etc. A yes or no answer is only half the story. Half right, half wrong. You cannot ask questions based on past wrong assumptions and expect a yes or no answer.  Why assume that separate selves can posses the ephemeral? You say you want a clear answer, you're thinking that it looks like a yes or no, but what you really want...

6 hours ago, Someone here said:

Because I'm really stuck with this nihilistic view on no free will which is related to almost everything in my life .

is the feeling of clarity, which comes by not believing thoughts that feel bad, and not asking questions that seem heavy only because they are based on wrong assumptions. Question the question itself, then new questions or true questions arise. If you're stuck in a view that feels bad, are you even really asking? Or are you simply wanting to let go of that view? 

 

6 hours ago, Someone here said:

I think I have a good argument that free will doesn't exist ..if its defined as the ability to have done otherwise,it  is not logically possible.

I wouldn't settle for "logically possible" or "good arguments". You want the kind of clarity that smacks you right upside the face and rocks your world. 

6 hours ago, Someone here said:

 

I need an awakening to Love . I'm pretty much materialist(stage orange) in my thinking and I think these notions of love are woo woo new age BS . But of course I could be wrong and I'm probably wrong .even though I never experienced unconditional love even once in my life . The love was always attached to an object or an experience like a beautiful woman or a beautiful sunset or a tasty meal etc. 

Love don't respond to neediness, except in guiding you away from thinking the thoughts that assert there is someone in need. You aren't a materialist, you aren't a stage, and you don't think that. Unconditional love is not an experience or an event. Thought credits love to an  experience having a cause, but that's just a thought. It's under-lying. You aren't beholden to being any way. You are unconditionally free. 

[Mandy]

3 hours ago, Aware Wolf said:

 

Genies can be tricky. Do I have free will now? What is free will? How will my life change if I don't have free will and I now get it? or Vice versa ? Will it be better or worse? 

 

And what happened to the traditional three wishes thing??

You are the Genie.

[Aware Wolf]

4 hours ago, Mandy said:

You are the Genie.

Like I Dream of Genie? 

 

 

[Blessed2]

13 hours ago, Someone here said:

it  is not logically possible.

 

What is logic?

 

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by Blessed2

[nurthur11]

58 minutes ago, Blessed2 said:

 

What is logic?

 

 

lul 

[nurthur11]

18 hours ago, Phil said:

That free will is the empty room. 

 

Yes!

 

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by nurthur11

[Alexander]

5 hours ago, nurthur11 said:

Yes!

 

 

Yes to what? He didn't answer the question. Another word salad in making 3,2,1 go.

[Orb]

@Alexander

 

There is no answer to that question, it's a completely useless question too no offense. 

 

"How do I make a sandwich?" Is a far better question, it actually aids in creation. 

 

"Do we have free will or not?"

 

Completely useless, doesn't lead to anything, just cycles of answers becoming complex questions and turning into more complex answers.

 

Anyone who answers yes or no to this question is him/herself deluded and deluding others, continuing the "unconscious" clockwork of repeated nonsense.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Orb

[nurthur11]

42 minutes ago, Alexander said:

Yes to what? He didn't answer the question. Another word salad in making 3,2,1 go.

He says that awareness is the free will that we want. Which for me it is sufficient when answering this topic.