My problem with Free Will


Hazard

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Hazard: give this mini essay a whirl, as it seems to be a pretty good description of the interplay of the fallacy of the stolen concept and free will.

Also, you can go on you tube and hear National Branden describe the fallacy as a guest lecture of Barbara Branden's Principles of Efficient Thinking series.

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Your choices are, in a sense, "dictated" by something else: your values.

Dennis,

I do believe that our choices are dictated by our values, additionally, I believe that our values are "chosen" for us. Sane humans value food, for instance. We have no choice in the matter. You are unable to choose to stop valuing food.

Jordan,

The above example refers to a biological necessity. Where there is no alternative, one cannot speak of a choice. One cannot e. g. choose to stay alive and not to breathe.

But keep in mind that humans can still choose, despite the hardwired biological program working against it, to end their lives.

(This would be choosing between the alternative 'life' vs. 'death').

For example, I can decide not to eat another piece of the rich chocolate cake because I don't want to gain weight.

I would use this example as a support against free will. Something inside of you gives you a negative reinforcement to the thought of gaining weight (almost like how pain works), therefore you choose not to eat the good tasting cake because you value ​not being fat over eating cake. Its a simple value assessment. Which want has more sway over your mind? The want to be fit? or the want to have cake? Whichever is more potent will cause your choice.

The reason why I choose X over Y is exactly what you mentioned above: I attribute more value to X.

It's the values we have which guide our choices.

The idea of free will as a potentiality to choose uncoerced is a very abstract issue.

Each of our actions has a reason, and in every concrete situation where we make a choice, our will is always linked to a value judgement on our part.

Imo working with the concept of "value judgement" instead of the too abstract "free will" is more practical.

For it allows a detalied (and also, if necessary, ethical) assessment of those value judgements, the motives that lie behind them, the effects they have, etc.

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If what a thing does is the only evidence of its nature, then it can never act contradictory to that nature. Everything you do is further defining yourself. Every choice you make, as you cannot be in the same situation more than once, is a demonstration of your nature relative that particular situation. The question becomes not whether events have been determined, but whether the nature of reality has.

If everything has been determined, but the outcome is only as knowable as an irrational number, then how does it even matter? Determined, undetermined... what's the difference if it's impossible to know everything?

It's like an old movie you've never seen--it's still new to you.

And determinism doesn't take away the responsibility from the individual to make their own happiness.

Imagine in the future we've made a machine that can predict upcoming events infallibly--it obtains and analyses an infinite amount of information and comes up with an answer that takes into consideration even the operator's knowledge of the answer. Imagine a person using that machine to learn about their own future. The machine would have to come up with the most desirable outcome in order for that person to consciously follow what would basically be instructions for his/her future. If the machine came up with an undesirable future, the person just wouldn't do it, and the machine would be wrong.

If determinism is completely theoretical and can never affect the way things are, then what's the use in thinking about it?

It's not depressing because you still exist, and you're still you. It's like being forced to be free... is it really that bad?

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Hazard: give this mini essay a whirl, as it seems to be a pretty good description of the interplay of the fallacy of the stolen concept and free will.

Also, you can go on you tube and hear National Branden describe the fallacy as a guest lecture of Barbara Branden's Principles of Efficient Thinking series.

Ah, so he is suggesting that purpose and intent exist as a byproduct of free will. Well, Google defines purpose as: "The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists." And defines reason as: "A cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.". If one asked, "what is the purpose of life (in general, not just human life)?" One could argue that the purpose of life is to sustain and continue its processes. Anything that lives multiplies and reproduces, its one of the qualifiers that allows something to be labeled as "life". If something that does not have free will (life in general) can have a purpose, then the argument is void because purpose is not a byproduct of free will. Purpose is simply and explanation for the reason or cause behind an action with respect to an outcome. For example, "what is the purpose of photosynthesis?" To sustain the life of the plant. It is the end that the action supports. That is purpose and that is independent of free will. Do you disagree?

Jordan,

The above example refers to a biological necessity. Where there is no alternative, one cannot speak of a choice. One cannot e. g. choose to stay alive and not to breathe.

But keep in mind that humans can still choose, despite the hardwired biological program working against it, to end their lives.

(This would be choosing between the alternative 'life' vs. 'death').

The reason why I choose X over Y is exactly what you mentioned above: I attribute more value to X.

It's the values we have which guide our choices.

The idea of free will as a potentiality to choose uncoerced is a very abstract issue.

Each of our actions has a reason, and in every concrete situation where we make a choice, our will is always linked to a value judgement on our part.

Imo working with the concept of "value judgement" instead of the too abstract "free will" is more practical.

For it allows a detalied (and also, if necessary, ethical) assessment of those value judgements, the motives that lie behind them, the effects they have, etc.

Ok, so are you agreeing with me? That is exactly how I am saying that decisions are made, per my previous post.

And determinism doesn't take away the responsibility from the individual to make their own happiness.

Right, I still believe that we are responsible for our actions. Crime should still be punished, etc. Even though I don't believe in free will, I don't think anything should change about how we actually act. Its an odd conclusion that I've come to, I know.

Imagine in the future we've made a machine that can predict upcoming events infallibly--it obtains and analyses an infinite amount of information and comes up with an answer that takes into consideration even the operator's knowledge of the answer. Imagine a person using that machine to learn about their own future. The machine would have to come up with the most desirable outcome in order for that person to consciously follow what would basically be instructions for his/her future. If the machine came up with an undesirable future, the person just wouldn't do it, and the machine would be wrong.

Not so, if the machine could analyse an infinite amount of information then it would know how this person would react to hearing any future and it would continue to foresee reactions until it found the future that the person would obey.

-Jordan

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The bottom line is this:

We either have free will or we don't. In order to answer the question one way or the other, we have to be able to distinguish between feeling like we have free will and actually having it. Until we can tell the difference, everything else doesn't really matter (meaning the goofy arguments not based on evidence).

The argument that I have free will because I decided to write this post from my own free will is absurd on its face.

Bob

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Jordan, with the noise and the book scenario, you say that you could not choose to be concerned, and therefor the concern for the noise causes you to react without any necessary free will.

Well, and what of self-referential thought? When you think "I", was your own existence the cause of the thought?

Again, if you are part of your own cause... then that means you are determined to be you, which, yeah, that is the case.

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  • 1 month later...

Dear Jordan,

I would take your theory to a deeper level (I'm sorry if you did already, I didn't read all the posts 'cause I'm in a hurry, but your post stroke a chord and I wanted to answer) and bring Nietzsche up, with his theory of how all philosophies are built the same way and it's hard to get out of the box because you think on the structure on which your language is built on. I would go way back to our parents and the society directing us in a certain direction, which is quite deep and hard to realize completely how far it goes. But even like that, at one point in your life you can choose to go back as far as you can and change everything. If you're really smart, as far as building another language on new rules. Just because we, humans, in time, built limits, doesn't mean that those limits really exist anywhere else than in our heads. It's all your choice.

It stroke a chord because a few months ago, when I turned 18, my dad asked me how I feel. And I said it's all a bit frightening. Because I realized that no matter the age, I could still find fingers to hide behind, but in the end, in front of myself I'd have to be honest and admit it was me who took all those choices. Being so free can scare you a bit. It does scare me and I'm pretty sure it scares everybody. You can find all the philosophical deep fingers to hide behind, but the truth is quite as simple as it seems. Leo Tolstoy said "Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.". That's just how it goes, no matter what you add around it, it might be sparkly, it might be pretty and interesting, it might seem smart and profound, but it's still not it.

You can cut your fingers off. You can do whatever you wish. The only reason you don't do it is because we only have one instrument to use through all this freedom and that is logic. And people lose logic. Think about all the teenagers and pop stars who do all of those non-sense things for attention. Wearing a telephone on your head is not so far away from cutting your fingers, conceptually speaking, there is still no reason.

Sorry if it seemed immature or anything, but I think keeping it simple is really the best option.

- Silvana

p.s.: not reading the whole discussion was using my free will and I'm not proud about my choice, but I did it, not because anyone else or destiny or anything at all say what I have to do now is more important, but because I consider it more important.

My theory:

There is no such thing as Universal good or bad, it's what each individual chooses is good or bad for their own self. The fact that some choose to follow others instead of thinking their own values doesn't mean anything, it's still a choice.

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Hi Silvana,

In my earlier post I made a distinction between making a choice, and having the free will to make any choice. My theory in it's most crude state explains that people are more likely to do certain actions (like eat breakfast) than they are to do others (like cut off ones fingers). This can be seen throughout society, it is an observable fact - that people tend to follow a particular set of general actions. However, I take it a bit further. I lost my belief in free will when I realized that I could determine the cause of any one of my actions - even complicated ones. Either experiences, or emotions, or whatever you want to point to - I could see how they were the reasons that I did what I did. So I do think that my hypothesis has observable evidence that supports it.

To answer your example, teenagers and popstars who do nonsense things to get attention are doing these things because they know it will get them attention. Thats the reason clear and simple.

So, in response to your theory, again, I do believe in "choice" just not free choice. We, as humans, are constrained. The more complicated the decision, the harder it is to see the cause, but its there.

I have been unsuccessful with defining free will concretely. Google defines it as: "The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion" However, I dispute the idea that our discretion is truly free. It is developed - nature nurture. If you were born in another country with another family do you think your free will would lead you to have the same values as you do today. I don't think so. I don't believe in a spirit, and I don't think that what you may call "free will" exists outside of our physical brain. We develop, we learn, we refine, but in the end our "choices" are a very complex method of sorting information and picking the best option at the time. Whether urges are driving the brain to choose cake or reason prevails to choose the salad. These things are learned choices. Simple logic decisions "I want the cake, but I will get fat if I eat it so I will choose the salad" or non-logic "I want the cake, i want the cake, i don't care about consequences"

Anyways, that's my idea. Its still a work in progress

-Jordan

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  • 1 month later...

I just want to say that after I stopped believing myself to be a determinist drone and started to apply my will as if it was free, my life has improved greatly, and I expect it to continue to get better as I gain more experience in making concious choises. Hope this can contribute to your decision in what you believe.

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Hi Morten.

Welcome.

May I say that's a very good insight. We can theorize all day, but the proof

of the pudding... etc.

We practise free will and discover the confidence to practise further.

(Backed up by neuroscience's findings that we can select different, or little

used neural pathways.)

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Free will works fine for me. Before I had any I was living in the woods with the wolves who found me when I was a baby. They liked the way I could bring down a deer with my 30-30 repeating carbine.

--Brant

they found me with it along with a photo of my parents next to their wrecked Jeep

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Hi Morten.

Welcome.

May I say that's a very good insight. We can theorize all day, but the proof

of the pudding... etc.

We practise free will and discover the confidence to practise further.

(Backed up by neuroscience's findings that we can select different, or little

used neural pathways.)

Thank you! I am glad to join this forum.

I realized at one point that if I really believe determinism to be the true way I and others function, then it seems kind of stupid to ask a question about it(or anything else for that matter). I was only clinging to that view because it was presented to me by seemingly intelligent people whom I otherwise respected and didn't want to disagree with. If it was true, then there was no way I could have believed otherwise, or for me not to have been convinced, no matter how good or bad I was determined to think their arguments were. It would simply be how things are.

But a view about such a fundamental question of my own nature must have consequences for how to act in reality, or it is just nonsense, a series of words with no meaningful connection with reality. So I thought hard and long about what aspects of my behaviour would change after "realizing" that determinism is true vs. beleiving in free will. I could not think of any. Or rather, I could only think of things that I could never imgine myself actually doing. So I concluded that I really never believed in determinism and from now on would embrace free will as the only possible belief for me to hold(that does sound a bit deterministic doesn't it :tongue:), while actually living my life.

But soon I discovered a lot about my behaviour did indeed change, and that some of my old behaviour was based on my deterministic outlook, even if I might never really have believed it. But how can I go back to believing in determinism now, knowing that my life will be worse? Knowing I have free will makes me assume responsibility and take action where being a determinist often meant I would float along in my life. I did not dare to dream so much then, knowing I had no way to affect change in this universe. The only thing that was easier then, was accepting destructive behaviour from both me and other people, which I do not really consider very benefitial now.

Perhaps some think I am wrong in this, but in that case, I can see no way of them convincing me. If they really believe they are correct, then why on earth would they be concerned about what information is determined to exist in my mind contra theirs?

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My Theory:

I do not believe in free will, even though I want to.

Want to or Have to?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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So because you can not do everything at once you have no free will? But then if you can do everything you have no free will. Its a snake biting its own tale. You choose what is in line with your value set, you can however choose your value set. The fact that you choose your value set consciously or subconsciously, that is the origin of your free will. Yes your actions are dictated by your values, but your values are dictated by your mind.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Morten,

I've come across the same discovery. My life is much better if I act as if I have free will. I think that is what we are supposed to think or else we couldn't function right.

Theodore,

I am not merely arguing that we don't have free will. I am arguing that free will is doesn't exist. It is a circular square, an impossibility. The idea that an action could be made without a cause is absurd. The cause is, yes, our value system. But our value system also has a cause, some obvious and some not so obvious. The easiest way to see that it does have a cause is by inspecting our biological needs. Needs and wants translate to values. We don't choose what to need or want, we just do.

I am in a weird predicament though, agreeing with Mortan that it is best to believe in free will.

Ba'al,

I want to. All the evidence (inspecting my own choices) points to a clear cause for all my actions.

Whoa, wait a second! What if you all have free will but I don't? :P

~Hazard

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This over-thinking free will will only result in inability to choose between Crest and Colgate toothpastes.

We are in part determined by genes and other things, like star dust, but if we build up a pile of right choices the culminative snowballing effect will be more and more right choices "determined" by previous right choices. Determinism is looking at life through the rear-view mirror and not seeing the choices not made, while free will is looking at the life ahead and seeing alternatives. Determinism is death, free will is life.

--Brant

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Determinism is looking at life through the rear-view mirror and not seeing the choices not made, while free will is looking at the life ahead and seeing alternatives. Determinism is death, free will is life.

--Brant

Wow, I really like that. Thank you Brant. I may be over thinking it and at some point it is best to just be practical.

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Determinism is looking at life through the rear-view mirror and not seeing the choices not made, while free will is looking at the life ahead and seeing alternatives. Determinism is death, free will is life.

--Brant

Wow, I really like that. Thank you Brant. I may be over thinking it and at some point it is best to just be practical.

Top-notch, Brant. I knew you could do it, if you moved to two-liners!

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Determinism is looking at life through the rear-view mirror and not seeing the choices not made, while free will is looking at the life ahead and seeing alternatives. Determinism is death, free will is life.

--Brant

Wow, I really like that. Thank you Brant. I may be over thinking it and at some point it is best to just be practical.

Top-notch, Brant. I knew you could do it, if you moved to two-liners!

Ouch!

--Brant

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Determinism is looking at life through the rear-view mirror and not seeing the choices not made, while free will is looking at the life ahead and seeing alternatives. Determinism is death, free will is life.

--Brant

Wow, I really like that. Thank you Brant. I may be over thinking it and at some point it is best to just be practical.

Top-notch, Brant. I knew you could do it, if you moved to two-liners!

Ouch!

--Brant

Lol, well, I'm serious. That was quite profound.

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