Is free will an illusion?

chic

chic

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Yes, I believe so. So much is made of free will. But, are our decisions really free? Or heavily influenced one way or another. If you believe we have free will, what makes you think so? Can you explain?

The past three years have taught me that we are only free if we are obedient to the will of a greater power in our governing world. This makes you think and think again because if you buck the trend and really choose freely, you could be destroyed, or so very nearly that your life never makes sense again. It's something to think about.
 

chic said:
Yes, I believe so. So much is made of free will. But, are our decisions really free? Or heavily influenced one way or another. If you believe we have free will, what makes you think so? Can you explain?

The past three years have taught me that we are only free if we are obedient to the will of a greater power in our governing world. This makes you think and think again because if you buck the trend and really choose freely, you could be destroyed, or so very nearly that your life never makes sense again. It's something to think about.
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I agree with you, Chic...
 
I am not sure I understand you "the will of a greater power"?
God has nothing to do with it. Free will exists but not in the way we would like
to think. Very minor everyday things, yes, definitely. On large life/death issues I am not
so sure. Science is determinism, causation. I think even animals have free will, though trivial
to us. A plant, if it could think, would say it had free will growing up.
You can PM me.
 

It somewhat depends on how you define "free will". For example, we're made up of Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Calcium and Phosphorous. These particles are collected together and interact with each other to give us our physical form. Individually, these particles are well understood, as is their behavior. They therefore do not display free will, they're deterministic. There are actual mathematical models on human behavior (I've only seen one once, and it's way way over what I'll ever be able to understand). As such, we don't have free will with regards how we, as humans, are put together and work.

Some people think free will means being able to "do whatever I please, when I want", and others have different ideas. The trouble is, what we would choose to do is determined by what we want. So in that sense, it's still deterministic, not free will (you're only going to do things you want to do, and not do things you don't want to do). I could eat a burger for lunch, or simply have a potato. I'd rather the burger, because I like burger more, and I *want* a burger. Can I control that? Do I have free will to change that, or do I just like burger more?

I don't think we have free will. We do things because we want to do them, and I'm not sure we have free reign over what we want, and what we don't want. Of course, I could choose the burger or the potato - but to really want it? I don't think I have that much free will.
 
Victor said:
I am not sure I understand you "the will of a greater power"?
God has nothing to do with it. Free will exists but not in the way we would like
to think. Very minor everyday things, yes, definitely. On large life/death issues I am not
so sure. Science is determinism, causation. I think even animals have free will, though trivial
to us. A plant, if it could think, would say it had free will growing up.
You can PM me.
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The will of a greater power in our governing world. I make no reference to any deity here.
 
chic said:
The will of a greater power in our governing world. I make no reference to any deity here.
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Hey, Chic. I'm not quite getting it. This "greater power", is it a set of rules, such as the laws of nature, or something else? By "governing world", do you mean the same thing? I'm interested in understanding, but I'm unsure of your meaning.
 
What if it didn't exist, and existed at the same instance constantly? Or that the concept is manufactured? The phenomena only exists in the mind. Stop thinking about it, and whether it exists or not and the question disappears.

From a Buddhist perspective our behavior and all phenomena is conditioned from other forces which are conditioned and so on. As we detach from the conditioning freedom occurs.

I have looked at it this way for years and there seems to be an endless amount of conditioning, so I sometimes feel free, but most of the time I am engaged in some mess. :)
 
Nathan said:
Of course a person's thoughts and behaviors are influenced by the surrounding social milieu, but we exercise our individual free will by the choices we make in life.
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What choice do we make that has no influence from outside?

I mean, shall I wear white shoes, or black shoes? Well, I only bought black, so it's not really a choice. I could eat a chocolate bar or a carrot, but I always choose the chocolate bar because that's what I prefer. Is that preference free will, or is it determined by the fact we want chocolate more than carrots? In other words, how much is the illusion of free will? I think perhaps we choose based on what we want, and our preferences. But those wants and preferences are determined by past experience.
 
I had quit one thread, came here, went for coffee, came back and thought I was in the previously viewed thread.

I got confused thinking I was on page 2, and "no free will" explained that drunk getting jiggy with the manatee statue.
 
For homo sapiens executive control pilot in our electromagnetic creature brain, absolutely we have free will. I've never bought into the twisted definition of free will that those that try to define it so make it out to be like some kind of abstract complexity. Their premises don't bear on that broad a conclusion. So do worm electromagnetic brains in the soil that avoid certain chemical, dry soil moisture levels, extreme temperature environments, and daily choose to between those directional movements and consuming located fungi and micro-organism organic nutrients.

So do fish brain control pilots in streams that daily have behavior patterns during the day as to where they swim, where they feed, where they see other fish. All those creatures, unlike plants have complex oscillating brain wave fields that make choices from A to Z depending on their experiences and learning. As sense and thinking experiences occur it physically creates cellular physical structures in nervous system tissues via neural plasticity. We are what we do and experience and much of that depends on choices our electromagnetic executive control pilots make. Over longer time scales, mental processes and choices that negatively affect life and reproduction via evolution processes tend to die out of species while those that favor such increase towards those changes.
 
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I suppose it depends on what is meant by "free". In the abstract, there is no such thing as an uncaused event or effect. Everything is caused by something. Much of what happens in human behavior is the result of the unconscious mind, which means we simply aren't aware of it. So if you're not aware of the cause for what you do, then is it really free will?

The human mind is complex. Oftentimes, our morals, ethics, values, principles, fears, etc... play a big part in what we do, even though we may not be aware of their influence. So I think free will is a vague concept with a rather loose interpretation.
 
I have yet to meet a single person that has ever not done just whatever the hell they wanted to. Yes there are rules and policies and laws put into place but Americans seem to be big on doing what they want despite the law. They don't give a crap. So I believe you do have free will. Because we see it every day when people do whatever they want just because they can and they refuse to be told what to do.

Regardless of whether it's for safety or anything else. To sit here and say you don't have free will is ridiculous because laws and rules are handled with such disregard today that there's no way you can say you're not free to do what you want. People make the choice to be selfish and do as they please every single day.

People are free to go out and commit crimes and hurt people every day. They're free to decide whether or not they want vaccines in the midst of a pandemic. They are free to not pay their taxes. Being free of punishment is another matter. You have choices and you make them every day in everything you do.

There is no one standing with a gun to your head to stop you. So tired of people whining about their rights and their freedoms when they have so much more than some of these other countries. And they just do what they want anyway so I don't understand the complaint.
 
VaughanJB said:
Then it's not free will. ;)
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I don't think that makes sense unless one holds that one only has free will if every choice can be made freely with no risk of detrimental consequences. "Free will" generally just means what one chooses unconstrained by other people's interference.

Putting that aside, of course free will is constrained by a great many things such as the will of other people, the actions of other creatures, gravity, our bank accounts, our education and our upbringing. We have free will if, within those unalterable restraints, we are none the less free to make any available choice for which we are willing to pay the price of any attendant consequences.
 
Mr. Ed said:
Like I said, free will is not absolute as it is grounded by what we want.
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Solid point. We are NOT free to choose what we want (ie, what our preferences are) but we are free to choose what we want when that is possible and within our means. The other non negotiable restraint is reality, we are not free to choose what that will be.
 
The only time my Free Will is threatened is when TWSS. ....haha......(y)
Sure I always got, TWIT and can think about that!
 
chic said:
Yes, I believe so. So much is made of free will. But, are our decisions really free? Or heavily influenced one way or another. If you believe we have free will, what makes you think so? Can you explain?
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I have to disagree. Of course our free will might be limited in three ways, the laws of the land, our financial condition, and social limitations which we have imposed on ourselves through marriage and child birth — products of our free will. So what is the problem?
 
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