An appeal to randomness does not really prove free-will.

like a chump

Proof? hey someone go outside of time, then come back. Tell us what you find.

Having free will implies that you can't predict the person's next move by any means i.e. his actions are indeterministic AKA random.
If the behaviour of building blocks are predetermined, then the behaviour of all the matter built up by these blocks are predetermined too.
Given that the behaviour is indeterministic i.e. random, then the behaviour of the matter is likewise indeterministic.
This leads to the actions of objects made up by this matter to be indeterministic as we can't predict them.
Which in turn would mean that a person, an object built up by this matter, and his actions are indeterministic which then implies free will.

There is 0 evidence... none, nada, zip... for "destiny". Using that ever sharp razor of Ockham's we are left with free will.

Ah, but how much of that "free will" is determined by biology or socialization?

Just trying to be a devil's advocate. Or something.

The question posed requires subjective answers, but we can only produce objective (and biased) opinions on the matter. No one can prove free will through any means but by his own deduction, so any answers provided are only as accurate insofar as those who whole the same belief perceives them. It isn't a simple deduction between this and that -- black and white. It's a question of consciousness, where consciousness resides, and what controls it.

One could argue that we have no free will from the standing of the future. Our future minds will look back and be able to say, "I could have done something other than what I did, but I did what I did." Under that light, there is no free will. However, speaking from a present state of mind, you could say you have a choice whether or not to commit action A or action B. Choice indicates free will. But is there really a choice, or, as some in this thread have mentioned, our decision was made at the beginning of the universe -- logically following from a sequence of events controlled by quantum mechanics and the laws of nature? The answer is, I believe, how you live your life. You can have the free will to make your own decisions, or you can leave those decisions up to your concept of "fate." But that in and of itself is a choice.

My personal take on it is that we all have a destiny -- a predetermined event or set of events that we will encounter. But our free will lies in how we react to those situations. We may not be able to choose when and how life presents these things, but we can chose how we stand in the face of them. As many things esoteric, free will and fate are not mutually exclusive.

Philosophy, so many complicated words.

I cannot speak from anything else than from personal experience. The choices before me are never numerous. They are, basically, the products of my upbringing. The choice I end up making, is pretty much dependant on the circumstances, a reaction to the situation, whether I'm tired of chirpy, ect. Now maybe I'm particularily predictible, but I know I end up acting the same way, whether I like it or not. Honestly, the idea of free will doesn't make much sense to me. Again, merely a personal impression.

I figure though, it's one of those necessary ideas, like fairness or meaning of life. One thing you must believe it's true because otherwise, you end up pretty much like a cutthroat little monster stewing in its own filth. You start living your life like that there's no such thing as free will, then you're not responsible of whatever the hell you do.

I spend a disgraceful amount of time thinking about this, and from what I've read/thought and heard, there are hundreds of ideas.

Determinism:

1) The theory that everything in the universe behaves in a pattern due to cause and effect, and that we are no different.

2) The unconcious mind, which is a very tricky thing to accurately define, precedes 'conciousness', and therefore exists primarily.

3) That there is no such thing as 'conciousness' or the self, and that qualia is an illusion.

4) The idea that although 'I' exist, I exist purely subjectively in regards to other prerequisites of the universe, and therefore am a slave to previous causes.

5) The idea that to ever have free will would require a first cause, an unbiased, free thought. This, however, would be nothing but random, without any meanigful rational decision behind an action.

Free Will/Non-Determinism:

1) If I exist subjectively, and the universe is infinite, the universe wills itself, so therefore I have both free will and determinisn. Only criticism, is that so should everything else.

2) Conciousness does indeed have the first cause, transcending from nothingness into being. "Man is what he wills to be", Sartre.

3) Quantun theory sometimes *implies*, not proves as many people say, that the universe is not determined. Two things, however, Einsten himself did not entirely believe this, and it doesn't mean the individual has any rational decision making availible to him through conciousness, and this could just mean non-determinism/chaos, rather than free will.

4) Self determination, which is another compatabilist theory, that man cannot ever have complete free will, because this is to deny his physical and psychological boundaries, but he does have a limited amount of circumstantial free will.

5) That conciousness, again, transcends science, be it religious, or simply believing that chaos precedes science and being, and therefore has completely inexplicable free will, that man is essentially a subjective 'god'.




There's not really much point going too far into it, because it may always be impossible to come to a non pre-supposed conclusion. Despite this, I am a compatabilist, and believe that we have limited free will, and that the universe has a kind of infinte constitency, and that conciousness is a part of nothingness, but is also captivated in being, so we have a subjective experience of this thing we call 'life'.

Also, you will have noticeably different, concious attitudes towards life depending on what you believe. If you convince yourself you are a slave, then you will act like one. If you convince yourself you have free will, you will make more of life. Either could be a deception, or they could both be true in different ways. Bottom line is, I think it goes far beyond free will or determinism, and into trying to comprehend the origin of the universe, being and non-being and all sort of unthinkable paradoxes, and it kind of never ends. So really, I guess I think life is actually a paradox in the sense there is no question or conclusion, it simply is what it is.

EDIT: In think what i basically meant, was that to answer a question like this, is to comprehend 'reality', which may not be comprehendible, or even have any comprehendible consistency to it anyway...

But random actions means that you cannot control them. If you cannot control them, then they are not of your will.

Once again I see "predictability" being mixed up with "predictedness," or whatever the proper word for that would be. Something not being predictable by us does not imply that it is not predicted (or predetermined, if you will) after all. Since I don't feel like coming up with another case-in-point example I'll just quote one I've come up with earlier:


Which side the die fell on is not predictable by us, being outside of the perfectly isolated box, but that doesn't mean that which side it will fall on is completely random, nor that it's not pre-determined based on the die's initial position and the forces which acted upon the box.

I am about to discuss solipsism.

Go.

Solipsism, being "the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is certain to exist", makes perfect sense to me. The only thing you can be literally 100% sure about is that your own mind exists, because... well... you are your mind and you... well... [censored] off, it's certain. Anyway, everything else you get from your sensory inputs (eyes, ears, nose, skin, etc.) and for that you have to accept that there's a teeny tiny bit of retardedly ridiculous possibility that it's all just made up by your mind, or maybe even just a simulation fed directly into your brain (Matrix galore). However, I think that the possibility of all the things you see, hear, smell and touch actually being real is much greater than not, so it makes absolutely no sense to live as if it's not. A possibility's ridiculousness and outrageousness does not outweigh its incredibly low probability, no matter how ridiculous and outrageous it is (which is something many conspiracy nuts fail to appreciate).

Sounds like skepticism, in which case I'll throw the words of George Moore on the table:

I'm not exactly sure what is that supposed to mean. :unsure:

It's one of those things I contemplate when faced with a lack of reading material and confinement.
I sit and think about the fact that my actions are often the product of pheromes and unique biological makeup, just as much as social upbringing, and societal conventions.
Then I think about one of sixteen million other things I have going on in the dark crevasess of the mind, and they are far more interesting than pondering whether or not I chose to eat a grilled cheese sanwich or that my body desperately needed calcium, carboydrates, and made the choice for me. Because in the end, when we are dead, it doesn't matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_is_a_hand
The way my teacher taught me about it, was that if the skeptic refused to believe in the existance of an external world (i.e. beyond his consciousness), he wouldn't have a reason to do so. For instance, he would be too afraid of getting out of bed as he couldn't be sure on whether or not there was a floor. He wouldn't have any reason to do anything besides to think because of his skepticism. It's basically throwing the skeptic's argument against himself i.e. "Does he really believe them?".

Hmm, close but not quite the full cigar. Solipsism sounds like a condition. Skepticism is a viewpoint. Solipsism from an Agnostic would probably be Skepticism.


That broke my head a little bit. Can't explain it.

Do we have free will?

No.

History takes the course it always did, and always will. Lincoln could have made the decision not to run for president, but he invariably did, therefore he had no choice in the matter. People a hundred years in the future will look at what we did and realize that we had no choice in the matter at all, because if we did, their world would constantly rearrange itself to encompass the changes we make, and since our world doesn't rearrange itself in such a manner it means the people before us had no free will either.

Thats, "did we have free will?"
do we?

We are free to choose what we want to do within the options given to us inside a society.


So no, we don't truly have free will.

Your logic is not very much sense-making to me. And I once compared a person teaching his son the Klingon language to Nazism, so if your logic doesn't make sense to me you're doing something wrong.

Society does not limit the decisions, it just punishes some.

But through punishment, it does limit them in terms of your ability to take that decision.

Only if you fear the consequence. But that in itself is pre-determined. Or becomes pre-determined as personality becomes more ingrained.

Now where is my free Wii.

You know, I was just about to make a similar thread about determinism...Oh well, early bird catches the worm. I'm kinda biased, as I am a determinist but I'd say no.