Philosophy: Do you believe in free will?

[el_boss]

Good stuff guys. It's going to take me some time to process this. I can throw in some small bits though.

I'm just going try and clear up some concepts.
Some forms of determinism are compatible with free will. They are called soft determinism or compatiblism.

Indeterminism or nondeterminism is not a teching of free will. It's the idea that everything is random and based on what samson explained.

@Honoko: I can't really see why or what your interjecting against. Are you saying that "god" gave us free will?

[complich8]

I'm just going try and clear up some concepts.
Some forms of determinism are compatible with free will. They are called soft determinism or compatiblism.

Indeterminism or nondeterminism is not a teching of free will. It's the idea that everything is random and based on what samson explained.

Right right, but compatibilism ultimately boils down to justifications of free will based on the perception of free will.

Basically, if you're going to define the whole universe as an objective entity, then your definitions of objective traits shouldn't be dependent on subjective perceptions. That's the big problem I have with compatibilism ... it just sort of opens a loophole, and says "well, the universe is deterministic, but I've still got free will, because I feel like I've got free will". Bullshit, I say... if nothing else in the universe is defined as subjective, then why should free will be?

To me everything can be boiled down to a state machine, which is an abstract idea of a system that has some amount of states and a table of all the possible transitions from a given state for any combination of inputs. Thinking things, meaning things with brains, satisfy the conditions needed to be classified as state machines, we take in input constantly and are always shifting from state to state.

As far as the mind as a state machine, sure, it could qualify as one. But the question is, could it meaningfully be considered one?

The problem with modeling the mind after a finite automaton is that the input set is infinite, the output set is nearly infinite, and because we have complex, constructive memory, no state can ever be repeated.

Thinking of the mind as a computer, or as a state machine, or as anything that's generally deterministic just doesn't work. The same stimulus might or might not produce the same response on any given attempt, and whether it will or won't is unpredictable.

[lonewolf]

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1. If you know where particles are and in what direction they are moving, you can't predict the speed.
2. If you know where particles are and at what speed they are moving, you can't predict the direction.
3. If you know at what speed particles are moving and in what direction they are moving, you can't know the location.

To quote, ""The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known"

______
Indeterminism or nondeterminism is not a teching of free will. It's the idea that everything is random and based on what samson explained.
______

This is incorrect interpretation.
Rule 1 of uncertainty states that you can determine location and direction but not speed. It is not randomness. This is your theory #3. This goes against determinism (theory #1) and random (theory #3) but not against free will (theory #2).

By knowing at least one variable of direction, speed, or position you are exercising free will.


http://atheism.about.com/library/glo...inty+principle

On uncertainty principle.

[samsonlonghair]

Rule 1 of uncertainty states that you can determine location and direction but not speed. It is not randomness. This is your theory #3. This goes against determinism (theory #1) and random (theory #3) but not against free will (theory #2).

By knowing at least one variable of direction, speed, or position you are exercising free will.


http://atheism.about.com/library/glo...inty+principle

On uncertainty principle.

Actually no. The link you've given confuses observer effect with uncertainty principle. That's a common mistake (and proof that about.com doesn't check their sources).

Here's a fairly concise statement from wikipedia: (Admittedly they sometimes have incorrect information too, but they're right about this.)

"The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is frequently, but incorrectly, confused with the "observer effect", as it relates precision in measurements related to changes in velocity and position of certain particles relative to the perspective the observer takes on them."

[Honoko]

@Honoko: I can't really see why or what your interjecting against. Are you saying that "god" gave us free will?

I wasn't for or against any of your arguments. Merely making a statement of my point of view. And yes, I do believe that God gave us free will.

And just to be clear, it's definitely not my intention to use this thread as a platform to evangelize =P You asked a philosophical question on free will and I'm just contributing according to how I think about it. That being said, any further discussion revolving around God and free will would be just my take on what I think it is. If you disagree, that's fine.

Anyways, for or what it is, I'm enjoying this thread so far ^^v

[el_boss]

And just to be clear, it's definitely not my intention to use this thread as a platform to evangelize =P You asked a philosophical question on free will and I'm just contributing according to how I think about it. That being said, any further discussion revolving around God and free will would be just my take on what I think it is. If you disagree, that's fine.

I just wanted to be sure on where your standing. You are more than welcome to talk about the religious aspect of this. I have no intention to argue against your beliefs but I might say why I don't believe in them.

I don't believe in a god because I feel that it's just an excuse to bring attention away from humans. When something good happens it's like, "oh praise the lord" when something bad happens it's "god works in mysterious ways" or "it was gods will". It's just a way for people not to take responsibility for what happens. I'm often thinking, "when is this religioun business going to fade away". I know it's a little weird, but religion feels like such an ancient idea.

The reason I'm saying this is that this sort of thinking comes up alot within philosophy. People come up with advanced moral and ethical systems instead of just taking responsibility.

[Yukimura]

@ Hisenburg: I totally forgot about that, with that then I guess I don't think anyone could know what's going to happen because they can't obtain a full picture of the state of the universe. However, I still thik the Universe is deterministic, Hisenburg just guarentees that a perfect illusion of free will exists because it can neither be proven or disproven. Thus all you can do is believe in it's existance or not.

But you do have to give God credit for ALWAYS getting involved in philisophical debates.

What's the belief that there is a God but that said God doesn't matter to you at all, I have that one. It stems from the fact that I can only justify my belief in God through the fear and ritualism instilled into me by being dragged to church every week as a child. I'm so far gone that I can't dismiss the possibility and thus I believe in God. However I don't really have much faith, which is what I tried to tell my parents when I realized what forced belief does to an idea.

Anyway, God said X, is just as valid of an armchair philosophy as most other ideas on free will, however some armchair philosophies do have so actual relevace to the observable universe, and I tihnk that's why the God solution is falling out of favor in the world/America (Damned international students shattering my misconceptions)

[Terracosmo]

What's the belief that there is a God but that said God doesn't matter to you at all, I have that one. It stems from the fact that I can only justify my belief in God through the fear and ritualism instilled into me by being dragged to church every week as a child. I'm so far gone that I can't dismiss the possibility and thus I believe in God. However I don't really have much faith, which is what I tried to tell my parents when I realized what forced belief does to an idea.

I can SO relate to this!
I'm not religious at all, I never pray, in fact I often claim that God doesn't exist. Nontheless there is a part of me which doesn't "dare" to go against "God's will" too much. An example of this would be that I could never write heretic lyrics, something that I have been asked to do since I'm part of a black metal band. There is just a part of me which refuses, even though I don't necessarily believe in the first place!

It's weird, really.

[complich8]

I'm gonna go back to a tweaked version of Leibniz's explanation on the whole God thing.

Every contingent thing has to have a cause. The cause has to be either another contengent thing, or a noncontingent thing. Matter, itself, seems to me to be a contingent thing -- it doesn't _have_ to be there in any capacity to cause something.

If a contingent thing caused something, then the contingent thing itself had to have a cause. So there's two possible chains of events. (arrows represent "caused by")

...<-contingent thing<-contingent thing<-contingent thing<-contingent thing

(an infinite chain of contingent things, or "turtles all the way down")

noncontingent thing<-contingent things<-...<-contingent thing

(an arbitrarily long chain of contingent things caused by a noncontingent thing).

The question, then, is "is it the case that the universe has simply always existed, or did it come into existence at some point". Thermodynamics seems to empirically point to the idea that the universe was created at some point, which means that at some point no noncontingent things existed. It's the question of a first cause.

If you can find a loophole and reverse the second law of thermodynamics (causing entropy to decrease), then it's possible for the universe's existence to be that noncontingent thing, and simply have always been.

As for what theists think about God and Free Will, there's so many possible explanations that make the concepts compatible. Like I said, you can just be a nondeterminist like Berkeley, or you can wave your hands about the Compatibilism doctrine of Leibniz and other determinists or employ another soft determinist technique.

The thing about free will is, if you view the mind as a pure machine, then there's no possible such thing. If you view the mind as something beyond machinery, and equate what thinks in us with a soul (removing it from the realm of determinism), you can still have it even in a deterministic universe with an omniscient god.

But if we're nothing but very complex deterministic machines, and that includes the mind, then the whole concept of free will is completely pointless.

[masamuneehs]

i need to do a more thorough read through, but I'm liking this discussion quite a bit.

Free will? Free in what sense? Free to do whatever you please? I doubt that. Every person imposes limits and inhibitions on themselves, in sense restricting their own free will. Some restrictions are physical and others are mental/emotional
(Ex. Physical limit on free will: I could choose right now to drink 40 beers, but I wouldn't get past 20.)
(Ex. Mental limit on free will: I could choose to go out into the street and cat-call all the fine ass women I see walking past. But something inside of me just can't whistle when it comes down to it. I CAN physically whistle, but some part of me just won't allow me to.)

Do those restrictions/limits that you put on yourself count as against free will?

I like to think that free will is the idea that you can do whatever you actually can bring yourself to do in situations where you have the chance to do said 'thing'. (Yeah that sounds repetitive, but all 3 must be met, at least in my mind, to constitue an action done under free will.)