Is free will real?

[robvalue]

Because human cognitive functions is just an umbrella term for a bunch of stuff happening. As is virtually every term we use. We do this for convenience, and we then observe the behaviour of the groupings we make in an abstract sense. When you zoom right in, all we have evidence of is deterministic behaviour and quantum randomness. If there is anything else, I haven't heard of it, but I'd be happy to be enlightened.

Basically, you can't add in determining factors by defining things in a grouping method. You just observe the outcome of the zoomed in part, on a zoomed out scale.

If I'm talking shit, anyone is welcome to correct me. I'm always eager to learn when I have the wrong end of a stick.

[Mudhammam]

You are about as free to choose your will as you are free to choose your appetite.

[Alex K]

You are about as free to choose your will as you are free to choose your appetite.

I've heard someone smart say it before: Maybe you can do whatever you want, but you can't want whatever you want.

[robvalue]

Ah, nice.

[FatAndFaithless]

I can't recall exactly where I read this (my leaning is Harris' "The Moral Landscape"), but it's an interesting question. Something like, take the life of a serial killer. If you had grown up in his place, with all his memories and abuse and psychological damage, with his experiences and brain chemistry, is there any honest way at all to say that you would've ended up differently than him?

[Mudhammam]

People seem to often think of the will as something separate from: a term for the behavioral outcome of victorious instincts and motives. And these are but higher order causes. Causality can most certainly produce novelty and caprice but everything, including human beings, that exists in a moment proceeding upon another, is defined by various stages of its past.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Everyone lives as if they had free will but only those who believe in determinism live what they believe to be a lie.

[Anomalocaris]

What do you think?

You are completely free to will the only will chemistry would permit you to will at any given moment, and nothing else. You will will it, and reflect on all the other wills, not one more, not one less, and not one from other than amongst them, that chemistry tells you you could have willed, and think you chose from amongst them freely, as you chmistry have prompted you irresistably to think.

---

Everyone lives as if they had free will but only those who believe in determinism live what they believe to be a lie.

Chemistry will you to lie to yourself rather than believe you live a lie, so your worthlessness is not your fault, and you won't go to hell for it.

[IATIA]

... it is our belief in free will (unique in the animal kingdom) that keeps us mentally separated from other animals.

I disagree with that statement.

First, there seems to no agreement on exactly what free will is.

I live out in the sticks and we have acquired cats through various drop offs and wanderings. IMHO, these cats demonstrate personalities and free will that appears indistinguishable from humans. This is not to suggest that their awareness is or is not at the same level.

I have argued in the past as unsuccessfully as everyone else on my opinion relating to free will.

The biggest problem is that I do not know myself if I truly have free will, which makes it hard to argue against someone else's opinion.

My personal dichotomy is either 'free will' is 100% biochemical responses or 100% external to the body (which leads into a whole nother discussion). This is, if any awareness is not 100% controlled/created by the biochemical processes of the body, there is no reason to believe that 100% of my awareness cannot be separate from the body. (And that again leads into a whole nother discussion).

[Alex K]

Everyone lives as if they had free will but only those who believe in determinism live what they believe to be a lie.

I don't understand why the rest aren't living less of a lie. I don't see determinism making all that big of a difference any more.