Philosophy: Do you believe in free will?

[Deadfire]

To me Free will is a belief , a doctrine that says that I have the power over my actions. It’s been supported though Indeterminism, and however defied in determinism. However the facts remain about if those actions I take can be judged by my ethics or my own causality. (Meaning of course that there is objective and subjective connotations).

To look at it in a Philosophical way I have to decide whether people have the power to choose among alternatives before an action. Is events cause by what happened before? (Cause and effect). That leads down to the road of if I decide to accept that or view it that free will actions are an effect without a cause.

I believe in a middle ground that my Free Will is a product of my thoughts, beliefs, and desires. So accepting that my actions have a cause but the cause has been determined by for lack of a better word "upbringing". If my actions aren't determined by my beliefs, my desires, and my character, then it seems that they aren't really my actions, correct?

[XanBcoo]

I didn't understand a lot of that, Deadfire. Some of your grammar confused me. I do generally beleive in Free Will though. Unless our actions are attributed to the desires of some diety, not having Free Will just doesn't make any sense to me.

I believe in a middle ground that my Free Will is a product of my thoughts, beliefs, and desires. So accepting that my actions have a cause but the cause has been determined by for lack of a better word "upbringing". If my actions aren't determined by my beliefs, my desires, and my character, then it seems that they aren't really my actions, correct?

I beleive this to be true as well. It reminds me of an idea in Satrerean Existentialism, that our free will is a product of our being able to overcome our current situation, and that humans are basically defined by that freedom. Here's something from an essay I wrote last year (excuse some of the undefined terms, I'd rather not post the entire essay):

...We are responsible for the way we experience things because of how we interpret the being-in-itself of things in the world. Everything exists in-itself with a facticity, and we give it meaning through the result of our consciousness (which inherently means making distinctions), and thus, we shape the world. Because human facticity is based on our characteristics and therefore past decisions, the essence or being of a human is made up of the projects that a person chooses throughout his life—but we also have the ability to move past this current facticity. This is similar to the common concept of “free will”, by which humans have the power to choose.
[snip]
...any action means acting towards something that is not. It is through this nothingness that we create our being—and this is our freedom. Through the near limitless free choice of projects set out by our former actions, we are all able to transcend our current situations. Although Sartre’s view narrows down the world to only define a mere set of tasks, his work allowed for other existentialist thinkers, such as Merleau-Ponty, to elaborate and conclude that the world is not only tasks, but also exists as a “gift”, or “opportunity” to be taken advantage of by our freedom.

[darkmetal505]

We had this disscusion in my TOK class. I believe that one has control over his/her life, but in some circumstances, the inevitable is bound to happen. For instance, if your car launches of the road into a ditch, there is no way you can stop it. What I don't believe is that some has set your life in motion or is guiding it, because all consequences stem from your actions, either directly or indirectly. I would also like to say that religion plays a big deal in this topic for a large number of people.

[Honoko]

Ack, too many words to deal with at sleep-deprived capacity. I will read all that by my next post in here, I promise.

My take: yes I do believe in free will. I believe that every individual is responsible for his/her own actions and must accept the consequences of those actions, or at the very least, be accountable for them.

[Tekkaman Vigorot]

I believe free will certainly exists. You see what I'm doing now? You see what you are doing? You surely aren't asking because it can feed you or pay your rent, you do it because you want to, not because you have to. The power to ask why, that is free will, and it's something that is very real.

[complich8]

There are two components to "free will" -- "free" and "will". The extent to which you believe in either determines how sensible it is to put them together.

There's two schools of thought on freedom: determinists and nondeterminists. Determinists believe that, for any given state of the universe at any moment in time, if you have a complete picture of it (all the particles, all the states, all the vectors) you can compute the next moment in time based on all of that. In a deterministic universe, freedom is an illusion, because everything will happen exactly as it will happen. You may think you have it, but that's just the particles in the universe colliding in ways that make you think you have freedom. Ultimately, pure determinists don't believe in freedom.

Nondeterminists, on the other hand, don't believe in the systematicity of the universe. Rather than a logical progression from state to state to state in a predictable way, nondeterminists believe in what amounts to a random progression of states. In such an environment, you could have freedom, but there's a problem with free will in that -- you can't really have will.

So what about will? What is it? Why is it important? Will is a conscious mental act to produce physical results (thanks wikipedia!). If you have a nondeterministic universe, then freedom is meaningful, but will isn't, because there's no sensible deterministic causality. That is, you can't reliably produce physical results from mental action, because the rules may randomly change on you from moment to moment.

Now, if you're a nondeterminist, you've got other problems to address, like ... why does the universe seem deterministic? What's up with all this consistency? Theistic nondeterminists (like Berkeley) would say that God's benevolence is what keeps the game consistent -- he'd rather play by the same rules and project the illusion of deterministic reality than to constantly change them and render us confused and helpless.

Personally, I subscribe to what I'd call probabilistic nondeterminism. I think that the universe mostly makes sense, but unpredictable results can still happen. This sort of bridges the gap between the non-freedom in determinism and the shaky ground that Will is on in nondeterminism.

To me, the universe is a set of choices. At any given moment, there's a probability that I'll take a particular action. Will I get up and change my laundry now? Or will I wait 10 minutes? Will I take a book of matches with me and set my laundry on fire? I certainly could, I have the freedom to do so, and I do like fire, so there's some inclination. But the probability of me torching my clothes after I just washed them is infinitesimal.

Within the scope of things I'm capable of doing, there are thus things I'm more or less likely to do. Socialization tweaks those curves, making it more likely that I'll do the things I'm socialized to do and less likely to do things outside of those social norms. But even there, there's room for me to deviate, to randomly select option X instead of "nomal" option Y. Which could explain why I'm doing laundry and cleaning my apartment at 1:40 in the morning, instead of out enjoying the second-to-last night of night life in the semester.

[lonewolf]

To El Boss

Paragraph 1:
1) Freewill = choice.
2) God = a choice. Some people live an entirely agnostic or even atheistic life. Jesus gave the thief and the killer each a choice of living as agnostic life as each have already seen his miracle and even so one of them was stubborn atheistic in the end.
3) Ask this: By not choosing to have freewill does it mean i don't have a choice?
If f= freewill and g=no freewill and you're drowning in a swimming pool because you can't swim does it discredit free will? You should take swimming lessons.
This is when you're drowning. f=0, g=1
This is when you're drowning and paddle even without swimming experience, f=1 g=0

Paragraph 2

I have some theories as to why we have this feeling. The most obvious one being that there actually is a free will. As I said this is impossible to prove as is it's opposite, predestination or similar theories.
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It's possible to prove. If f=freewill and e=feeling and by definition freewill=feeling then we can't discuss free will unless we distinguish between the two. Feeling= do whatever you want. Right? No?

Paragraph 3
You're right about your existence being not entirely the outcome of your life. Can't argue with that. There are exceptions. Can you think of some? How about these:
-The rich gets richer. (your wealth)
-Like father(mother) like son(daughter) (your genes)
These are things you are born into or happen to you and does affect your life in the future at least for the short-term, childhood to adulthood and independence.

Paragraph 4
I agree. This only happens in an inorganic sense. A cloud will dissolve when it has loss pressure and momentum, why? However, a fish on the other hand, knows how to make a choice and although it seems stupid and simple it is not just randomly flipping coins to know where it wants to go for food. Its behavior is to live even if its won't last against other more intelligent predators but at the same time fighting off death for as long as possible. Anything while alive is capable of freewill. If you don't have freewill you're not alive at least in your head. The sooner you get back to reality the sooner you'll feel better.

Last paragraphs:
These are just restating what you've already established as freewill. I'll summarize them.

Freewill -feeling of doing whatever the heck you want to do
Theory 1- freewill is instinctive and by choice. "You just know." You just want to breath and want to watch TV. Choice being the keyword here. A-Z always results or most always.

Theory 2- freewill is again not random but has ratio and probability. This probability depends on your mood and you're capable of asserting. Probability being the key rather than choice. Probability > choice. A-Z is more likely to result because of personality, choice, location where you are, etc.

Theory 3- You do not believe in Theory 1 & theory 2. A third theory is needed to state that free will is but an illusion, a "comfort" device. Freewill can be a choice but the reward may not be what you chose and probability by choosing does not increase or decrease.
Despite thinking that you chose destination you can't predict the outcome.
Chose Railway destination A->B->D->Z but end up with A->D->B->Unknown

If i have to choose which of these theory to agree i'd choose all of them.

Freewill- feeling of doing whatever you want to do, and instinctively will more likely result positive if there is the right personality, location, birth right, privilege, wealth, power, money, fortune, luck, and last but not least by having the illusion that one is in control.

MLK
I have a dream...and it happened.

Dreams don't always come true but it can cause of his charisma, determination, being born after Civil War he inherited the Civil Rights, and he does not fear death. By his freewill alone he would not have accomplished, and even though he had the personality and born at the right time, he chose to lead the nation peaceful but didn't see how it may end his life.

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In the end what it all comes down to is what you want to believe, what makes you feel best. And I chose to believe in free will.

[el_boss]

Just came back from my exam on free will. The main assignment was to write an article on free will. Done and done

[samsonlonghair]

So, did you use anything we talking about here in your paper? If so I tip my hat to you; you've used us know-it-alls as a resource.

[Deadfire]

So, did you use anything we talking about here in your paper? If so I tip my hat to you; you've used us know-it-alls as a resource.

I hope he reworded mine as my grammer appears to suck. make sure also to tell us your mark!