Determinism.....

[chatpilot]

I don't think that free will is even relative to God having "created us that way". I interpret free will as the ability to make choices for better or for worse on our own without any outside influences. I don't find determinism as a viable idea for the simple fact that it would state that whatever we do we have no control over, and are predestined to commit to our so called choices. Under determinism you have no choices your choices are already predetermined and out of your hands.

Free will is a more viable idea simply because it is a conscious choice we make at the spur of the moment in response to whatever requires our attention. If you commit a crime I like to think that you made the choice to do so and yes, you should be punished for your crime. When it comes to the theological views regarding free will I have to say that I think that it is not free will at all. Simply because your courses of action are limited to 2 serve the biblical god and be saved or reject him and be damned for all eternity. Options of such importance as the above mentioned should not be limited nor coerced based on someones dogma. You should in my opinion be able to freely make a choice without fear of reprisals neither here nor in the "afterlife".

[Edwardo Piet]

What makes you think that we have any freedom over our Will? How is our Will free? The fact we make choices at the spur of the moment is just self-evident. But whether we do that truly freely though, without any outside influences is another matter. Yes we have choices, yes we have a Will. But are our choices free, and is our Will free?

Whether our choices are determined or undetermined, how do we freely exercise control over them without external influence? And, to note:

1. If you believe that you have free will and make free choices, that is in no way evidence that you do.

2. So that means there is a big difference between consciously aware choices, and free consciously aware choices.

EvF

[chatpilot]

Good points EVF but when I say will I mean volition

1 : an act of making a choice or decision; also : a choice or decision made
2 : the power of choosing or determining : will

Defined as such although outside influences may be a factor in your decisions your decisions come from within you. You are free to decide what is best for you or what will be the best outcome in any situation, therefore in that sense you do have free will.

If you are in prison you only have two choices: Act up or go with the program both of these decisions have their consequences. The former would most likely earn you a few ass whippings from the guards and other inmates while the latter would make your life in prison alot easier. Although your decisions are restricted in this context you have control of the outcome based on the choices you make.

[Edwardo Piet]

Volition can mean both simply "Will" and "Free will", as far as I am aware.

And in either case, a dictionary is not proof of whether our wills, whether our volition, is actually free or not.

I was talking about volition too - Will=Volition. Now a question is, how is it free?

Yes our choices come from within us, as in they come from our brain. But how do we control our brain when it's the brain that does the controlling? Awareness of our choices is not evidence of free choices. The fact we are aware we are making choices is not evidence that we can freely control them, and...also - the fact that we may believe that our choices are free does not make them free.

Awareness of choices coming from within us does not imply that the choices within us are freely chosen.

We have external influences, environment and genetics for instance. They influence the decision making of the brain...however - how can "we" possibly control our brain when our brain is the "We" that does the controlling. The brain is the control centre, it's the part of "us" that does the controlling. As far as I am concerned it is completely on autopilot.

And additionally, Adrian also pointed out how there have been recent studies that gave strong evidence that our subconscious makes our decisions before our conscious mind is even aware of them. ...

But even without this, even if we were aware of them, how does that make them free? How does awareness of choice=free choice? That is a total non-sequitur as far as I am concerned, how does that follow? It's an illusion. If you are aware of a choice and then believe it is free and your conscious thinking caused it then that does not make it so.

Conscious awareness of choice is merely just that, conscious awareness of choice. It gives no valid implication that our choices are somehow "Free". Whether we believe they are "free" and whether they actually are free is of course two different matters. Otherwise you could say that believing in something makes it so, otherwise you're engaging in special pleading for the subject of Free Will.

(And we all know believing something is so does not make it so, look at religion!).

So, in short:

Defined as such although outside influences may be a factor in your decisions your decisions come from within you. You are free to decide what is best for you or what will be the best outcome in any situation, therefore in that sense you do have free will.

I simply ask how the fact "our decisions come from within us" - in other words, the fact our brain makes decisions, and our brain is in a sense "within us" - ...how does that imply that our decisions are free? You are talking about the fact our decisions are within us. That does not imply that the decisions within us are free. Our brain does the controlling and how is that exempt from the natural laws of physics?

Our brain is just doing what it is doing. And it is the control centre. And whether it believes (or "we" believe) that its Will (or our Will) is free or not, does not make it so.

EvF

[chatpilot]

EVF said: Our brain is just doing what it is doing. And it is the control centre. And whether it believes (or "we" believe) that its Will (or our Will) is free or not, does not make it so.

Damn E it took me a moment to understand what the hell you were talking about but I got it! My eureka moment has arrived. In fact the line quoted above said it all and I found an article online that actually backs your statement up.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...184533.htm

My error was that I was looking at this from a totally different point of view.

[Edwardo Piet]

I know, sorry, I phrased it awkwardly. But that's because I was trying to be specific with the parentheses. It only adds extra clarity once grasped (since I couldn't phrase it better it seems :S), so I'm glad you understood in the end

EvF

[chatpilot]

Not a problem, did you get to check out that link with the study that is relevant to this subject?

[Edwardo Piet]

I read a bit of it when I saw you link it, but I was doing other things.

Looks really cool, from what I saw looks like a great find. I wonder if it's a link regarding the subject that Adrian knows about or if it's another one altogether

EDIT: Looks like it's about the same thing sort of thing as Adrian has mentioned yeah. The fact that your subconscious processes things before you do, that you make a choice before you are aware of it.

And as I said, even if you were aware, being aware of choices doesn't make them free. You could just be an observer of your choices and believe they are free when they're not - why would they be "Free"? What makes them any more free than any other animal, or a plant? or viruses? Or non-living things??? Etc. Lol

EvF

[solarwave]

EVF:

I seem to have also come to the conclusion that we are not free by accident, not that I like the idea at all. Not that I am saying that I believe we don't have free will, I just happened to think of an arguement for determinism which I can't seem to refute.

So on your thinking do you think that nothing is actually good or bad and no one is blameworthy and the only reason for punishment is to stop it happening again, and the only reason to want to stop it from happening again is because we personally dont like it?

Solarwave

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I want to tell you about an arguement for determinism I thought of, and I hope someone can tell me where it goes wrong:

Why is it that someone does action X instead of Y? Why does one person rape someone and another doesn't?

Would you agree that for an action to be free and morally responsible it can't be determined or random and so must go through a thought process.

But why do we have the thought processes we have? Why do we chose to help the old lady across the road rather than mug her? Must it not be because of our genes and from outside experiences. Doesn't a man steal because his genes may have a tendency to selfishness, because his parents didn't teach morals properly, because he fell in with a bad group of friends at school, because he doesn't have much money and hasn't the will to not steal because his life experiences havn't taught him that stealing is all that bad as we think of it. How could he do anything but steal, are not our thought process a product of genes and experiences outside our control?

If you say he still have the ability to chose it still can't be a random choice since that isn't free and if you chose you chose for a reason and weight to give to different reasons comes from life experiences.

Now I dont want to believe this, so can someone prove it wrong and show me what I have missed out?

[Edwardo Piet]

So on your thinking do you think that nothing is actually good or bad and no one is blameworthy and the only reason for punishment is to stop it happening again, and the only reason to want to stop it from happening again is because we personally dont like it?

I would say I agree with that, yeah. Because the thing is, it's only we that are the likers or dislikers of what we believe to be moral or immoral. Morality is always personal as far as I'm concerned. For I am not aware of any evidence for objective morality.

EvF