Free will and you.

[Foxaèr]

Tiberius already made the most brilliant post in relation to free will that I have struggled to explain for the longest time in relation to choice.

Yes, free will is real.

[Aroura]

Free will, or the lack thereof, makes no difference in my life.

Nothing at all? According to a study, when some subjects were told that free will does not exist, they became more aggressive, more likely to steal, etc. And another study told that students who believed in free will performed better academically. Does none of that describe any changes you've noticed about yourself?

If you actually look at that study, that is a very short term effect. After an hour or so, subjects showed no differences. Studies also show the exact same behavior she people had ANY deeply held beliefchallenged. The normal reaction is apparently aggressive denial, anger and acting out.

Long term studies on people who actively disbelieve in free will have not been done. However, considering humanists and other such groups, it seems more compassion for others is a possible outcome

I find it to be one of the most cognitive dissonance causing ideas. I know it doesn't exist, at least in any meaningful way, yet I continually think and act as if it did. I have to actively apply it to a situation (a form of radical acceptance), but it is actually part of many therapy techniques to treat people with chronic depression, anxiety, and personality disorders. It helps people accept things the way they are, without assigning blame or passing judgment.

[truth_seeker]

Long term studies on people who actively disbelieve in free will have not been done. However, considering humanists and other such groups, it seems more compassion for others is a possible outcome

Not true.  Humanism, by definition, must include free will (and exclude determinism)

Wikipedia

    Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings

so being humanistic requires your own agency

[RozKek]

Free will says nothing about whether you have limited vs unlimited will.
It only asserts that you have **a** freedom.  How big/small is the margin is another issue.

The opposite of free will is determinism. It says that everything you do is based on movement of molecules that can be recorded and predicated mathematically. i.e. you are *only* a big fat equation, so I can "plot" everything that you are going to do until infinity.

Yeah. In that sense, 'free' is a meaningless modifier. The very concept of will, as I understand it, relies on the assumption that there is some capacity to exercise some degree of influence on a deterministic universe which is not recognizably dependent on said deterministic forces. There is either will, or we're just parts of the machine.

The problem in these kinds of discussions is that the word 'free' is used by theists (and quite a few atheists, to be honest) to suggest that 100% of the responsibility for a person's actions rest upon that person, and that none of it rests with God (who would actually have free will).

I doubt very much that when people say free will they mean that you're not affected by external stimuli at all. It's absolute nonsense to claim that we have 100% >free< will, but that's the problem with free will. It has so many definitions but according to Daniel Dennett, the parts of free will that are important are the compatible ones/the ones we can have.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

It completely changed my life when I learned that I had free will. Before I thought that I didn't have the ability to take a shit when I wanted to because I didn't have free will so I'd spend hours holding it. These days, I am aware I have free will so I just take a shit on my sofa.

[RozKek]

Tiberius already made the most brilliant post in relation to free will that I have struggled to explain for the longest time in relation to choice.

Yes, free will is real.

Would you mind quoting him or give a link to the post/thread? I can't find it.

[Aroura]

Long term studies on people who actively disbelieve in free will have not been done. However, considering humanists and other such groups, it seems more compassion for others is a possible outcome

Not true.  Humanism, by definition, must include free will (and exclude determinism)

Wikipedia

    Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings

so being humanistic requires your own agency

I'm a humanist, and don't believe in most definitions of free will. Pretty sure you don't have to ascribe to the definitions in Wikipedia to join a group. The humanist group I belong to seems to have people with a mixture of stances on this subject, but most are some level of deterministic and would define agency as actions, not free actions. At most a few call themselves compatabalists, but none of them would describe agency as the ability to act, not the ability to freely chose actions. Even the dictionary only defines it as the ability to act, nothinges about freely closing actions.

I do understand that many people mean not free but just will when using this term. But that seems meaningless to me. You are determined to pick chocolate ice cream, but no one is holding a gun to your head at the time. This definition seems semantics to me as there is still no choice, you are determined to pick chocolate just as if a gun were to your head. You are still constrained by outside and internal forces, they just aren't as obvious or unpleasant, usually anyway, as a gun to your head.

[robvalue]

Hey, I've read some threads about free will and watched Sam Harris debate etc. I find it really interesting and can't get it off my mind for some reason, but my question right now is: How has your beliefs/views on free will affected your life, if in any way at all?

Well.. that's a difficult question!

If there is no free will, then it has only made the difference it was going to make no matter what.

I've realised "free will" is such a badly defined concept as to be nearly useless. I've accepted that the real control I have over myself is a tiny fraction of what it appears to be, if I have any at all. It doesn't bother me. It is what it is.

I suppose it makes me somewhat more understanding of horrible people, because I'm aware of how little control they really have, especially if they had a disastrous start to life. That's not to excuse their behaviour, but to understand. I think we're (almost) completely driven by our subconscious.

[Alex K]

Hey, I've read some threads about free will and watched Sam Harris debate etc. I find it really interesting and can't get it off my mind for some reason, but my question right now is: How has your beliefs/views on free will affected your life, if in any way at all?

Free will means different things to different people, and often doesn't refer to a coherent notion at all. Given that, it's not possible for me to have one single opinion on "free will".

[The Grand Nudger]

Or fatalistic, or absurdist. No shortage of options.  We've told so many stories about our will at this point it;s hard to tell exactly what people mean to express.

well, fatalistic, by definitions, reduces to determinstic.
and absurdist, by definition, reduces to free.

In this sense, of course, there is no shortage of options rewording

Ah but it doesn't.  They both end at some specific state, but the road you take to get there is different between the two.  Subtlety is key.  Absurd is absurd, an absurdist will can be constrained by absurd restrictions and yet in-determinate.  Go ahead and consider the binary option though, that's usually -so- informative. It;s not as if you're bound to fuck it up when constraining all possible options to only those two.