Another Free-will poll, please bear with me!

[Aroura]

I realize there are more than 3 options, and please do explain if you select other. I also realize this probably get's brought up about every 3 months or so.  I'm doing it because I'm serious curious how much of the forum proscribes to which belief on this matter.

My guess is that atheists are much more likely to be determinists than most western religious people, and that very few if any of the religious will select that option.  I think compatibilism or some version of it will be the most common, but that there will be more determinist here than some of the religious folk might think.

This poll stems from the fact someone just called me an "outlier" and "unbalanced" for holding a deterministic worldview  Now weather you agree with determinism or not, my point with this poll is to show that the "outlier" is actually Libertarian Free-Will, even amongst religious folk.


But I'd like to see what the percentages are, I could be totally wrong.

Edit: haha, I figured it out!

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Sorry, figured out how to make the actual poll. Derp!

[Cyberman]

Is it compulsory?

[robvalue]

I believe that the only variable is quantum randomness, if indeed it is random. If it's not, then things are purely predictable. Does that count as determinism under your definition? Deterministic but not fatalistic.

[Aoi Magi]

umm can I get a list of available terms and definitions?

[Aroura]

umm can I get a list of available terms and definitions?

Sure.

For the purposes of this poll,
Determinism would mean lack of meaning free-will.  Hard or soft, quantum randomness can included in this one. Your actions are determined by factors outside your control.
Libertarian free-will would mean free-will without any constraints, you may chose anything regardless of things like genetics or social situations.
Compatibilism would be free will constrained by the things that determine your choices. 

These are over simplified, but work for a layman's definitions I think.  I'm sure one of our local philosophy majors could explain them better

[robvalue]

Sign me up for some of that woo-less derminism then. I am not aware of any evidence which would suggest anything more than this to be the case.

Does libertarian mean I can fly if I want to? Or not that liberating?

[Aoi Magi]

Hmm I'd probably be closer to determinism, but the thing is I don't think everything is totally out of "my" control cause the "me" isn't a single entity rather a collective outcome of multitudes of quantum randomness, so my actions/will is determined by "me" effecting everything else just as everything effects "me".

[bennyboy]

My view is that free will is as real as a single human agency. If you see a human as a single agent, then that agent has the power to make decisions and to act on them. If you see a human as just a label for a gazillion QM particles vibrating in space, then "free will" is also just a label for some of the complex interactions coming from those totally non-willed, non-human particles.

I have a problem with people switching perspectives, and cherry picking too much. For example, if free will is not real, then responsibility is meaningless, and the idea of a legal justice system has to go out the window. But I've seen people argue in one thread that free will is an illusion, all is deterministic, and then on another thread say that a child rapist should be executed or something like that.

[robvalue]

I keep seeing this free will vs justice argument, and I don't think it's an issue.

If we say/discover there is no free will, then the very concepts of justice and responsibility are meaningless. No one is making any justice or non justice decisions, as free will has been removed from this also. We're doing what we would do anyway, be that locking someone up or releasing them. So I see it as a non issue. You can say they go "out the window", but they are still there exactly as before, we've just found out there are no choices behind them and so are meaningless. We can't "change" anything given the information that we have no free will, unless that information is actually false.

This would only be a problem if you had an agent with free will judging an agent without free will. In other words, what we "should" do becomes a non issue if we don't have free will.

And if someone says a child rapist should be murdered, that would be in case there actually is free will. If there isn't, then the statement is as meaningless as everything else. It's not convenient to write "in case we do have free will..." before every sentence, so I think you could assume it from a determinist After all, a determinist shouldn't assume they are correct and talk/act like it's true, in case it's not. If it is, they've just done/said what they would do anyway. I call it Hawking's Wager. To put it another way: before we make any discussion about what anyone "should" do, there is an implicit assumption that free will does exist in some form, as far as that conversation is concerned. If we don't make that assumption, the conversation is meaningless. Even if we believe in determinism, it doesn't mean we assume we are correct.

Really, you can't act "like it's true", because that would imply it's actually false because you're making a decision. So you're always automatically making Hawking's Wager, you just don't know which side is correct.

[bennyboy]

Here's the question: why is it that people "realize" that free will is an illusion, and yet continue to act willfully? Your answer is that the chain of events behind the person's actions inevitably arrive at that willful action-- even though they know they aren't really capable of willful action. But that's kind of like realizing the emperor has no new clothes, and that YOU are the clothes.