(July 10, 2023 at 6:12 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I think it's a misunderstanding of something our brain does.  If I ask you what you're even asking me about and you say that you picked a snickers from all the candy bars in the vending machine - yeah..sure.  I think that's a real thing.

So you believe free will to be dependent on actions? As opposed to a natural state of being?

I think that's what people are talking about and thinking of when they consider free will, yeah. Brains doing brain stuff. One wonders whether we can freely will not to suffer. Sure, two arrows and all that...but I'm not entirely convinced of our ability to yank those levers.

(July 10, 2023 at 6:26 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I think that's what people are talking about and thinking of when they consider free will, yeah.  Brains doing brain stuff.  One wonders whether we can freely will not to suffer.  Sure, two arrows and all that...but I'm not entirely convinced of our ability to yank those levers.

Yeah, the suffering thing is a bit of a head scratcher, I must admit.

In and of itself? I don't think so. This place is a meat grinder. If there's a way to hurt you it's going to find out. Even if we had a say in what we did, we don't have much of a say in what's done to us.

It would certainly be bad for some theologies. Bad religion, basically.

(July 10, 2023 at 6:36 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: In and of itself?  I don't think so.  This place is a meat grinder.  If there's a way to hurt you it's going to find out.  Even if we had a say in what we did, we don't have much of a say in what's done to us.

It would certainly be bad for some theologies.  Bad religion, basically.

Well I still believe in free will even if we can't control what is done to us. I've only ever made good choices for myself despite having a freakishly overbearing and annoying mother who probably was the main contributor to my spinelessness.

Remember to tell her that before you kiss her.

The puzzlement is that the actual exercise of free will would look and feel exactly the same as predestination - you can't ever know if having that Mars Bar was your own idea or something that was a necessary consequence of the universe just playing itself out.

Boru

I have references from a whole bunch of research articles and papers re free will. I'll try to find them.
Basically the title (Free Will) is based on Medieval Moral Theology, where sin is defined as having (needing) ALL of the elements of a decision available in one's brain at the time of a decision, or it's not really "free". We know that is FAR from true, and there is also the disturbing business of the parts of a brain involving a decision light up in fMRI and other scans, seconds before the person in the experiment says they decided.

It appears much of decision-making is subconscious, and done before we are aware of it, thus making the term (free-will) meaningless. I think the latest stuff I read has the consensus at about 95 % subconscious. They say it's like a war going on in the brain, most of which we are not aware of. I get the problem of predestination, but, (the topic of criminal responsibility always comes up here ), ... the experiments are always in a "very short term" context.

One could conceivably put yourself in, or be in, ... an environment where you would decide you want to learn behaviors, practice behaviors, or just do behaviors (like "I am going on a specific diet to improve my health"), and then do just that (or not), and you would be "free" to decide to do that and then do it, with practice the behavior becomes established. It would come down to individual small momentary choices at the time you eat, but long term, you have made a free choice to change and act in a certain way, which you are "free" to do. The problem is "why would you want to decide in the first place to do that, ... and that may relate to prior personal historical "input". So long term, you may have free will in a broad sense, about many things. It's probably a combo of both short and long term decisions.

(July 9, 2023 at 12:24 pm)FlatAssembler Wrote:

(July 9, 2023 at 11:53 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I think a better response would be What about suffering that is clearly NOT caused by free will?

Boru

But the only suffering we can be sure is not caused by free will is one that existed before free will.

Not true. Babies suffer from many terrible diseases. 
They don't have free will (not old enough) and their parents didn't give them cancer.

Define free will. In what way is it free?