Free Will: Fact or Fiction

[Tino]

I know it's become fashionable lately to say that we don't have free will, but I don't buy it. We appear to have free will, so I think the burden of proof is on those who say we don't. I would like to see an experiment proposed to show that our will is not free.

[Faith No More]

Um...no. Just because something appears to be so, that does not shift the burden of proof.

And we could do an experiment to show that our will is not free, however, the one I'm thinking of would require smashing someone's frontal lobe.

[Erinome]

Sure, I think I have freewill. I do not, however, believe my freewill is a gracious gift bestowed upon me by a deity.

[liam]

Determinism and fatalism are concepts that I am not willing to accept for two reasons; a support of human free will and a more meta issue with the arguments themselves.
In support of free will, given the massive amounts of freedom of choice we have (now more than ever, it seems), the different choices made by identically determined individuals, the actual rational contemplation of which we are possessed and so on, I find determinism and fatalism at once unpalatable and in need of much greater consideration before it becomes anything near acceptable.
Secondly, the argument for determinism is piss-weak, we act differently to natural phenomena and we are by no means set into a series of unchangable events. The dialectic issue that I take with this is that the fundamental and quintessential defence of it is 'but you're determined to say that' and no argument to the contrary seems to penetrate the infernally thick skull of a determinist, especially *shudders* a Nietzschean. Just as a christian and marxist won't concede their fundamental assertion, it is simply bad disputational etiquette.

[Ben Davis]

It's demonstrable that some of our actions are purely chemical/neurological (e.g. fits of uncontrollable rage/falling in love) also that interfering with brain functions can drastically alter 'personality' (e.g. a blow to the head/electric shock therapy). These are strong arguments against the concept of free will as it means that behaviour can be predicted. We realise this, instinctively & regularly, when we make predictions on how people will react based on prior experience of their actions/reactions (e.g. 'knowing' your friends/business stakeholder analyses).

On the other hand, it's demonstrable that people can behave in ways inconsistent with chemical/neurological expectations (e.g. controlling their emotions) also that people have 'recovered' from altered brain functions (e.g. reasserting personality). These are strong arguments in favour of free will because it means that behaviour runs contrary to predictions. We realise this, less commonly than predictability, when our expectations of behaviour are not met (e.g. people 'not being themselves').

I feel that our current understanding of biology & neurochemistry is insufficient to come to any conclusions about behavioural drivers but it's almost definitely true that it's not as simple as free will vs determinism; I think it likely that those terms are drastic oversimplifications of incredibly complex social, psychological & neurological mechanisms, the type of which may be theoretically predictable but probably contain too many variables to be practically so.

In reality, we observe that people are more predictable than not.

[TaraJo]

I know it's become fashionable lately to say that we don't have free will, but I don't buy it. We appear to have free will, so I think the burden of proof is on those who say we don't. I would like to see an experiment proposed to show that our will is not free.

Scientific date regarding something as vague as free will is hard to do.

However, as I was saying, chemical reactions in our brain control us and from what I've heard, scientists have actually done brain scans on people, observing the chemical reaction that leads them to make a choice before the choice is actually made. I still think we're slaves to those chemical reactions in our brain, if not for our entire consciousness being those chemical reactions in the first place.

[Darkstar]

Hmmm...that's a tough one. I've heard of a study where a part of the brain corresponding to a certain action lit up noticibly before the action took place, but what about if the environment changed between the light up and the action? Would it be impossible to change your mind? I don't think it would. I know that hormones and other impulses have some effect on you, and that you are influenced by past experiences, but I think that there is enough you can control for there to be free will. For example, you can choose to resist your biological instincts. If we were complete slaves to them we would always be acting on them. This, however, brings up an interesting question: How complex must an organism be before it has free will? (For instance do any animals have free will, and if so what is the least complex one that does)

[pocaracas]

Here's a copy/paste of what I wrote on another post in this forum:

I think I see where you're getting.... either it's all pre-destined physics, or... god gave us free will.

My take is: all pre-destined physics. But the physics involved is soooo complex, that you can see it as free will..... my guess is that you end up making the decision you have to make from all the physical processes that occur in your brain. And you make the decision that your brain makes (duh!)

The decision making process is entirely based on a) genetics and b) previous experience/knowledge.
Genetics can't be tweaked in any way... If you're born a fool you're a fool forever! These are the tools Nature gives you to work with.
Experience is in constant change, so, from our point of view, it's completely .... random?...naaahhhh.... unpredictable.... and we like to call it "conscious".

[Reasonable_Jeff]

I don't see that anyone really has free will. This seems to be more of an illusion than reality.

Did you choose your parents or what they would teach you? Did you choose the time period and culture that you would be born in? Did you choose the opportunities that would be made available to you in life? Did you choose your personality or preferences?

On top of all that, you at all times choose what you most desire, our decisions are chained/limited by what our greatest desire is (you can have conflicting ones).....but we can't even choose our desires.

I believe only God can change your desire. I believe that by nature people do not find God appealing.

It's only by God's intervening that anyone would see a relationship with Him as desirable or even plausible.

I believe that (for real Christians) God changes the desires of your heart and allows you to see Him as He is....glorious.

These are my opinions as a Reformed Christian. I am not stating them as fact so please no "prove it" statements. I'm simply wanting to throw in as it were.

[Darkstar]

I don't see that anyone really has free will. This seems to be more of an illusion than reality.

Did you choose your parents or what they would teach you? Did you choose the time period and culture that you would be born in? Did you choose the opportunities that would be made available to you in life? Did you choose your personality or preferences?

On top of all that, you at all times choose what you most desire, our decisions are chained/limited by what our greatest desire is (you can have conflicting ones).....but we can't even choose our desires.

I believe only God can change your desire. I believe that by nature people do not find God appealing.

It's only by God's intervening that anyone would see a relationship with Him as desirable or even plausible.

I believe that (for real Christians) God changes the desires of your heart and allows you to see Him as He is....glorious.

These are my opinions as a Reformed Christian. I am not stating them as fact so please no "prove it" statements. I'm simply wanting to throw in as it were.

So what you're saying is that god claimed we had free will, but not only do we not, but god sometimes influences our decisions subconciously? Then how can anyone go to heaven or hell?