Do you believe in free will?

[Flobee]

Do we have no more control over ourselves then a rock does when falling down a hill, or a computer governed completely by our programming?

Well, you have your mind, of course. I would hope that means something to you. Rocks and computers aren't quite analogous to the human mind, or for that matter, any other intelligent species in the animal kingdom.

According to your world view rocks and computers are quite analogous to the human mind because they are all the product of unintelligent physical laws governing matter actually. It is atheist scientists like Steven Pinker who are the ones that compare the human person to a computer not me.

You say above that free will is our own and not given to us by God. I'd like to know how you can prove that and demonstrate how in a purely naturalistic universe unintelligent forces can combine unconscious matter to somehow create consciousness and a free will that stands apart from such matter.

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you're just another presuppositional apologist who has stumbled onto an atheist forum.

Such people argue from the presupposition of the existence of God,and are not willing to consider the possibility of error although they have no evidence for their position.

Boy you sound just like another prepositional naturalist who argues from the belief that only the natural world exists and your not willing to consider the possibility of anything more even though there has yet to be a naturalistic explanation for the big bang, fine tuning, the origins of life, consciousness, the moral law, rationality, or free will.

One cannot use reason to discuss beliefs/views in which reason plays no part in forming or in maintaining.

Show me one way that my beliefs are not reasonable. Good job at avoiding everyone of my arguments in response to your original statement by the way.

You know you guys really aren't arguing against me you are arguing against leading atheists such as Francis Crick, E.O. Wilson, Will Provine, Susan Blackmore and many others who all state that atheism is simply incompatible with free will. I believe in free will just as all of you seem to be saying that you do, however if you think through what naturalism really means and if you read the works of your own atheist philosophers and scientists, a few of whom I have named above, you find that they disagree with you.

If you think you can prove them wrong and somehow show how it is possible to have things such as consciousness, rationality, absolute objective morality, and free will while still maintaining your belief in a purely naturalistic universe then I would be glad to hear what you have to say. If not I suggest you either come to the natural consequences of your belief system like those people above have done, or you continue believing in free will and consciousness and absolute objective morality and you embrace a world view that does not eliminate forces beyond mere matter which can actually explain such phenomenons.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

If you think you can prove them wrong ---

Oh dear,that's why I don't bother.


Mate, I don't have to prove anything. I make no claims. I assert only "I don't believe". You're the one making the claims. The burden of proof is 100% yours.

I'm also perfectly comfy saying 'I don't know" when I don't know. I have no need to appeal to the God of gaps,aka argument from incredulity. IE "I'm too ignorant,too stupid or too unimaginative to think of anything else, therefore God did it"

[leo-rcc]

I have no way to distinguish between "free will" and the "illusion of free will", so I live my life assuming there is "free will". Unless you have a way to demonstrate that actual "free will" does or does not exists, I can't really rule out either way. For my daily life however it makes no difference if there is an actual free will or not.

I think it's most relevant to Atheism vs. Theism because "free will" is most often used in the context of the Christian god allegedly giving humanity "free will" in the choice of whether or not to follow this god.

[theVOID]

I am what is called a Compatibilist - I believe that there is no "free will" in a literal sense, such as our minds truly overcoming causality, like an uncaused cause in themselves, even if everything is determined by the unfolding of a cosmic algorithm - unless I am forced to act against my will, every choice i made was still my choice, it was part of my very nature and the accumulation of events in the history of the cosmos lead to my nature being what it was in the first place, so there is no violation dealt to what humans are and what it means to be one.

It only seems natural to act in recognition of the effects of past events, be they natural/physical processes of nature or the events ingrained into my psyche through experience - they ARE what we call our "will", be it truly free or not the implications are identical in every practical sense.

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According to your world view rocks and computers are quite analogous to the human mind because they are all the product of unintelligent physical laws governing matter actually. It is atheist scientists like Steven Pinker who are the ones that compare the human person to a computer not me.

That's because the underline concept of abstract data and how it is represented physically is quite similar to the mechanisms of the brain in handling data - To show that an abstraction can be created quite simply from some conditional logic and a simple input output system with memory is suggestive that the brain needs only a more efficient version of the same concept to achieve the abstract mind that we all experience in being.

To compare it to rocks however is just naive, they don't have any comparable computational system.

You say above that free will is our own and not given to us by God. I'd like to know how you can prove that and demonstrate how in a purely naturalistic universe unintelligent forces can combine unconscious matter to somehow create consciousness and a free will that stands apart from such matter.

I would like to see that too The free will part anyway - What we know of the mechanisms of the brain creates no doubt concerning it's ability to handle the given functions that we experience (and the millions of brain functions that are not part of the "mind" ).

Boy you sound just like another prepositional naturalist who argues from the belief that only the natural world exists and your not willing to consider the possibility of anything more even though there has yet to be a naturalistic explanation for the big bang, fine tuning, the origins of life, consciousness, the moral law, rationality, or free will.

One thing to point out here... we have evidence of nature.

Oh And the whole "we have no naturalistic explanation for..." yadayada is one big argument from incredulity, a logical fallacy.

BTW, we do in fact have naturalist explanations for The origins of life (Abiogenesis), Fine tuning (Multi-verse, Mathematical Necessity) consciousness (monist theory, Metzinger, Spinoza etc.) Morality (Desirism, Moral naturalism, Moral theory of evolution etc) Rationality (Reliablism etc.) and i reject "true free will" as it has not been demonstrated or made logically necessary. Even if none of these presented philosophical and scientific theories come to nothing, i'll be resting fucking easy knowing that unlike you I have enough balls to reject the invocation of Magic Man (Aka God) in the face of ambiguity or inability to reach a complete conclusion.

That's the thing I find most bizarre about theists, you always seems so completely reliant on certainty, to the point where you reject naturalistic explanations that are consistent with reality and entirely sufficient to explain these myriad observations in favor of this invocation of Magic Man or which you have no valid argument in favor of nor evidence indicative of, all in the name of being conclusive - Your illusion that you are able to rationally obtain such certainty makes you foolish, and rather stupid.

[Edwardo Piet]

No I do not believe in free will. Whether our actions are fixed and 100% predetermined or whether they're probabilistic and undetermined, either way, where would our free will come in? I believe we have external freedoms and we also have the internal freedom of thought in the sense we are capable of thinking of, of imagining, a great many things. But the will itself cannot be free because the will wills us, whether it likes it or not, it is "us" in the sense it is the part of us that does the controlling, automatically.

I subscribe to the standard argument against free will:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_ar..._free_will

:

"[...]If determinism is true, we are predictable and not free. If indeterminism is true, our actions are random and our will lacks the control to be held solely morally responsible."

I also like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Strawson#Free_will

: "[...]You do what you do, in any given situation, because of the way you are.
So in order to be ultimately responsible for what you do, you have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are — at least in certain crucial mental respects.
But you cannot be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all.
So you cannot be ultimately responsible for what you do."

[theVOID]

Are you a compatibilist or incompatiblist determinist EvF?

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to admit that we truly have free will is to admit that we are actually a person with an immaterial soul

That strikes me as a non sequitur.


In the news today a man was arrested after leading police on a chase while driving a dump truck. Was that little exercise of "free will" due to the fact of an "immaterial soul" or due to the fact that he's an idiot?


I've frequently seen outlandish assertions...usually disguised as "philosophy." Meaningless.

I would agree with Flobee that to suppose that part of our psyche (our will) is not action caused by pre-accumulated events requires that it is not part of nature (which is a single chain of prior events in any possible world, pre-determined or not) and therefore not part of the brain - it is simply substance dualism (the belief that the Mental is distinct from the physical). To believe in contra-causal (incompatibilist/Libertarian) free will requires that one believes in a part of man aside from nature, the very thing commonly known as the Soul.

In other words, contra-causal free will is incompatible with Naturalism.

[Edwardo Piet]

I fully enjoy Daniel Dennett's view but if I were a determinist I would be incompatabilist. Whereas he is a compatabilist.

I'm not sure if I support determinism or indeterminism though, but either way I disbelieve in free will. So I am what is known as a hard incompatabilist or "pessimist" on the matter. Of course, I am certainly not a fatalist though. If I was I wouldn't be able to appreciate Dennett's arguments on the matter of "evitability" and the like.

Even cause and effect isn't proven and Quantum Mechanics has been shown to be quite "indeterministic", although if we had an even deeper understanding of it (since no one is really capable of grasping it on an intuitive level, it is only the maths that can be truly done) it may be more deterministic than we think perhaps. So I really don't know whether to subscribe to determinism or indeterminism, but I see "Free Will" as equally hopeless in either position.

I would be a compatabilist but I don't see what Dennett describes as "Free will" to be the will that is free. I see freedom of the agent, some people are more free than others, some are under duress and some are not... but the "Will" itself, I never see how it can be in any way, free. In fact, I don't see how the "Will" could even exist if it wasn't constrained. The will has to be unfree so it can be the controller of our body (and other parts of our brain).... some of us as agents being on the whole more "free" than others. The will can't be free otherwise it wouldn't be able to "will" us because it would be independent.

From Wiki: "[...]Some philosophers' views are difficult to categorize as either compatibilist or incompatibilist, hard determinist or libertarian. John Locke, for example, denied that the phrase "free will" made any sense (compare with theological noncognitivism, a similar stance on the existence of God). He also took the view that the truth of determinism was irrelevant. He believed that the defining feature of voluntary behavior was that individuals have the ability to postpone a decision long enough to reflect or deliberate upon the consequences of a choice: "...the will in truth, signifies nothing but a power, or ability, to prefer or choose".

"You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing." - Arthur Schopenhauer

[theVOID]

I have no way to distinguish between "free will" and the "illusion of free will", so I live my life assuming there is "free will".

Not empirically, however based on your world view (which i assume is naturalism or a form of?) you can logically determine that free-will is incompatible and therefore if Naturalism is true (or if you believe that naturalism is the only reasonable position to hold) then contra-causal free-will must be false (see my reply to min for a brief explanation).

Unless you have a way to demonstrate that actual "free will" does or does not exists, I can't really rule out either way. For my daily life however it makes no difference if there is an actual free will or not.

I agree completely, there is no discernible difference as to how one would behave.

I think it's most relevant to Atheism vs. Theism because "free will" is most often used in the context of the Christian god allegedly giving humanity "free will" in the choice of whether or not to follow this god.

Yet if God is omniscient then he already knows what decisions you will make before you have made them, ruling out contra-causal free will as well - I think Plantinga is right in his assessment of contra-causal Free will under an omniscient entity; it's not possible.

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I fully enjoy Daniel Dennett's view but if I were a determinist I would be incompatabilist. Whereas he is a compatabilist.

I'm not sure if I support determinism or indeterminism though, but either way I disbelieve in free will. So I am what is known as a hard incompatabilist or "pessimist" on the matter. Of course, I am certainly not a fatalist though. If I was I wouldn't be able to appreciate Dennett's arguments on the matter of "evitability" and the like.

Why are you a Hard incompatibilist? What reasoning persuaded you to take that position? I am swaying that way at the moment, mostly because i see Comaptibilism as being victim to pointless redefinitions of words like "free-will", something that i feel inconsistent in having accepted, yet I see the general concept as sound regardless, that being: if i am free to act according to my nature, and my nature is the accumulation of events (either determined or indetermined) then i can only truly act in one way because there is only one series of events that lead to my mechanisms being attuned to any given action, unless i am restricted in acting out my will i am free.

Re the latter: I think ultimately the determinist/indeterminist argument is one that can only be sorted out scientifically and not philosophically - It comes down to whether or not acausal events exist, there are apparent acausal events but it seems to me just as likely that these events can be quantified further and that this quantification may or may not show underline determinism - Either way i see the ultimate conclusion being out of the reach of Philosophy.

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Even cause and effect isn't proven and Quantum Mechanics has been shown to be quite "indeterministic", although if we had an even deeper understanding of it (since no one is really capable of grasping it on an intuitive level, it is only the maths that can be truly done) it may be more deterministic than we think perhaps. So I really don't know whether to subscribe to determinism or indeterminism, but I see "Free Will" as equally hopeless in either position.

I agree entirely

I would be a compatabilist but I don't see what Dennett describes as "Free will" to be the will that is free. I see freedom of the agent, some people are more free than others, some are under duress and some are not... but the "Will" itself, I never see how it can be in any way, free. In fact, I don't see how the "Will" could even exist if it wasn't constrained. The will has to be unfree so it can be the controller of our body (and other parts of our brain).... some of us as agents being on the whole more "free" than others. The will can't be free otherwise it wouldn't be able to "will" us because it would be independent.

Yeah, free will seems to depend on dualism i agree. Back onto Compatibilism vs Hard incompatibilism, what in your opinion are good arguments in favor of the latter?

[The Omnissiunt One]

I'm probably a compatibilist. There are good reasons to be an incompatibilist determinist, but I don't like the idea, and don't think anyone can consistently believe that his or her actions are uncaused.

[Flobee]

Mate, I don't have to prove anything. I make no claims. I assert only "I don't believe". You're the one making the claims. The burden of proof is 100% yours.

Well were talking about free will here and I began the post by asking do you believe in it and if so how do you account for it as an atheist. So far you haven't been able to give any reasons to support any of your beliefs and you've dodged all my questions to you. Instead of giving me answers you simply say I don't have to give answers. Well ok then don't give them but to me it sounds like your the one not willing to use reason here.

I'm also perfectly comfy saying 'I don't know" when I don't know. I have no need to appeal to the God of gaps,aka argument from incredulity. IE "I'm too ignorant,too stupid or too unimaginative to think of anything else, therefore God did it"

If you are saying "I don't know" then you are in a position similar to religious people. We are saying we don't know for absolutely certain but we believe, we have "faith" that God exists, and this faith is reasonable and based on what I believe is good evidence. To debate the existence of God would be a topic for another post but my point is that we are in similar situations however you simply say that since you can't see God under a micro scope then he doesn't exist where as a believer says science is good but it can't tell us everything and we need to have access to another realm of knowledge, faith and revelation, if we want to get answers for things such as "why do I exist," rather then just getting a physical explanation of our molecules and particles which science gives us.

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I have no way to distinguish between "free will" and the "illusion of free will", so I live my life assuming there is "free will". Unless you have a way to demonstrate that actual "free will" does or does not exists, I can't really rule out either way. For my daily life however it makes no difference if there is an actual free will or not.

I don't really understand this idea of the "illusion of free will."
Now I very much appreciate the last few posts where people have actually stayed on topic and given some good arguments and admitted the logical consequences of their beliefs which are that free will is incompatible with naturalism.
But don't you think that if you are willing to say that we have the illusion of free will then we can just as easily say that anything is an illusion? You could say I don't have a mind I have the illusion of a mind, I don't have sight I have the illusion of sight? Do you believe atheism is true, maybe it just has the illusion of being true?

It's true as leading atheists and the last few posters have agreed free will can't exist in a naturalistic world view but I just don't see how you honestly can't believe in free will? But the simple fact is that it does exist, we do choose.

Do you really think we were all really pre-programmed and determined by physical forces to come and post on these forums? Are you pre-programmed to be an atheist and I'm pre-programed to be a Catholic? If this is true then what exactly would be the physical force that necessarily forces me to come and post on these forums? And if this is true why even bother having these discussions because all the results are just predetermined, but then again I guess as you say we don't have the choice, we are just predetermined to have discussions that don't really matter because our opinions and ideas are all predetermined and uncontrollable so whether I'm right or wrong it doesn't matter because I'm predetermined to be and there's nothing any one can do about it. What a bummer.

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"[...]If determinism is true, we are predictable and not free. If indeterminism is true, our actions are random and our will lacks the control to be held solely morally responsible."

Thanks for finally understanding what your world view means, the other posters before you don't seem to understand this argument. I agree with the argument that if we are nothing more then matter then we are simply guided by physical forces and there is no "soul" that is distinguished from the brain to freely choose things, therefore we couldn't have free will. However free will seems absolutely obvious to me and I don't see how we can explain it away therefore I conclude that the naturalistic world view is incorrect because it fails to properly explain the data of our existence and can't account for free will which seems quite undeniable. I don't think the arguments provided really do anything to do away with free will.

: "[...]You do what you do, in any given situation, because of the way you are.
So in order to be ultimately responsible for what you do, you have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are — at least in certain crucial mental respects.
But you cannot be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all.
So you cannot be ultimately responsible for what you do."

Isn't this like saying well you were beat by your parents therefore you beat your kids and there's nothing you can do about it because that is the way you are. Yet some abused people go on to abuse there kids and some do not it still very much seems to be a matter of choice.
And even if say I like chocolate more then vanilla because that is simply how my genes are I still have the free choice to choose vanilla over chocolate, I'm not forced to obey my preferences or emotions or anything at all I can always choose.
Look at it in this light according to atheists natural selection is what it's all about, survival of the species, passing on our genes. Yet many (not all) atheists are greatly in support of contraception and abortion, two things for the most part directly opposed to natural selection which prevent the passing on of genes, yet these people freely make these choices on their own even though they conflict with the world view of natural selection.
You can't tell me that the terrorists that flew plains into the trade center weren't responsible for what they did or that Stalin just had to kill millions of people because it is the way he is. I'd like to see a defense lawyer try using that argument and see how far it gets him in court.

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Boy you sound just like another prepositional naturalist who argues from the belief that only the natural world exists and your not willing to consider the possibility of anything more even though there has yet to be a naturalistic explanation for the big bang, fine tuning, the origins of life, consciousness, the moral law, rationality, or free will.

One thing to point out here... we have evidence of nature.

Oh And the whole "we have no naturalistic explanation for..." yadayada is one big argument from incredulity, a logical fallacy.

BTW, we do in fact have naturalist explanations for The origins of life (Abiogenesis), Fine tuning (Multi-verse, Mathematical Necessity) consciousness (monist theory, Metzinger, Spinoza etc.) Morality (Desirism, Moral naturalism, Moral theory of evolution etc) Rationality (Reliablism etc.) and i reject "true free will" as it has not been demonstrated or made logically necessary.

Yes you do have theories about these things but unfortunately none of them work. You say life arouse naturally by pure matter with no intelligent guidance and yet you cannot recreate an intelligent experiment to create life. Multi-verse is a nice theory except it has absolutely no evidence to support it because it's nothing more then speculation. These are topics for another discussion but the point is you don't have a naturalistic explanation you have nothing more then wishful theories that have not proven conclusive in any of those cases.

Even if none of these presented philosophical and scientific theories come to nothing, i'll be resting fucking easy knowing that unlike you I have enough balls to reject the invocation of Magic Man (Aka God) in the face of ambiguity or inability to reach a complete conclusion.

Aren't you doing the same thing by saying free will is an illusion and trying to explain away the perfect fine tuning of the universe by saying well there's an infinity of universes out there that we just can't see. God as well as multiple universes would both be beyond our universe and beyond our ability to study scientifically so your using pure faith on that one.

That's the thing I find most bizarre about theists, you always seems so completely reliant on certainty, to the point where you reject naturalistic explanations that are consistent with reality and entirely sufficient to explain these myriad observations in favor of this invocation of Magic Man or which you have no valid argument in favor of nor evidence indicative of, all in the name of being conclusive - Your illusion that you are able to rationally obtain such certainty makes you foolish, and rather stupid.

Again I think your backwards, you are the one trying to force the evidence into a naturalistic conclusion when it simply can't be done because you are certain that matter is all there is. Yet when matter can't explain phenomenons such as love, beauty, truth, free will, morality etc. you simply say these things aren't real. I guess it makes sense that you don't believe in a God that you can't see or hear since you don't even believe in common sense realities such as free will.