Agnostic.com

16 0

Do you believe in free will?

Do you think we have a choice in our experience? Are we free to decide, or have we, and every moment before us, been decided long before humanity ever came into play?

Airego 4 Feb 19
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

16 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

Actually I decided you have free will, but all has limitations you reach. You have to live within your community and obey what they ordain. Total free will, NO, not while you are alive. There are always imposed limitations on free will.

0

Why would you spend that much time arguing a concept? Free Will is something that is really not completely achievable. All life has limitations. That includes free will. I am done. Do not Tag me. Do not attempt to argue with me. I will not argue. Free Will is a concept, somewhat defined by what you can or cannot do in the 2nd amendment of the USA constitution. Society controls free will as we know it. Have fun. Impressed by length of your answer. Please leave me out. I stand where I am.

0

I think people are putting too much depth in this question. Say Mom tells you if you help my in the garden, I'll take you to the deli for that huge banana split you love. You sure are into that, so off you go to help Mom.When you 2 are finished, off you go to get to have the wonderful banana split. What if Mom ask you that same thing? You don't want to help. You don't feel like going for ice cream. But when she finishes, you are feeling better and want that banana split. But Mom is firm. No split for you. There is a lot of free wills between mom and the girl. Free will has a sense of goodness to it. IT is a happy feeling, that free will, no matter if it is just a toothy smile telling you thank you. You do something wrong, you lose that free will. I think freewill makes you feel emotionally great, while murder, and other hideous acts take you emotionally down. They are not the same, but opposites. Free Will gives you a chance to do spectacular things for others and get that warm toothy smile that feels so wonderful..

The mother grew up with botanists, leading to her desire to have a garden in the first place. As well, she grew up in America, in a nuclear family, in a median income threshold, which is why she rewards certain behaviors with delectable treats. Perhaps the mother and the example child fight, because the mothers botanist parents forced her to be an incredible, and she does the same to her daughter, who returns this attitude with a disdain for gardening. Why do you look for a warm toothy smile? Why do you believe murder brings someone "down"? You are programmed to believe so, which is why you've continuously commented on this post with a myriad of arbitrary off point remarks; you had no freewill, you had a neural impulse and after years of living you've simply acted off of it. You're a grand example of how mechanical we are, and how our mind plays tricks on our "consciousness" to make us believe we've made the decision we "want" to make.
In all actuality, sociopaths and psychopaths, anyone with a sadistic twist to them, actually feel a great amount of joy from murdering others, of course modern media isn't going to propogate the real sick bastards in this world, but moreso drone society into believing they won't feel good when they hurt someone else. This is said mainly to highlight your lack of understanding of criminal psychology.
As well, a bunch of experiments have been done and your decisions are actually already decided before you even consciously decide. Something in your brains flips afterwards, making you feel like you made the decision, when in all actuality you're just feeling a little bit of serotonin flood ya brain.

Freewill is the basic action of freely deciding to do something, but if you study neuroscience and psychology in depth, you'll begin to understand that you, and all others on this planet, are barely free of the extreme variables that constantly affect you. And when it comes down to it, the amount the environment affects your decisions usually trumps any serious "forethought" (since thought and its implications on self and perception of this world have been argued since the days we've lived in silly little caves) and makes you nothing more than a body bumbling about a reality of stimulation, blindly searching for what makes you feel good.

0

I think genetics play a great deal with what we are and become.

0

Very well uplifting, outstanding, and over the heads of quite a few here. I still say when your free will destroys or hurts another's, you have over extended your limits on free will. One of my harder lessons in life was that others have free will and though you may no agree with it, as long as you are not bullying, hurting, or murdering them, you have your free will. We have laws out that have to be obeyed to protect people's free will.

0

You may can murder someone, but your free will is going to put your ass in jail. Then you have the free will to sit your ass in jail.

1

We decide what world we live in. We make choices everyday that can effect us in many ways. Could be big choices like: moving to a new house or picking a partner. Small choices like: clean the dishes or jog. So as an example I am not even living. I stay at the house all the time. Keep trying to get a job or do something to get me to somewhere new. I made myself my own enemy becauce I wanted to procrastinate. I believe you either screw yourself or nudge yourself to success by your choices.

Friend, this world is far beyond meritocracy. There are great injustices in and outside of your country; hard work does not always equal success, as lethargy and apathy do not always gain you failure.

@Gwendolyn2018 That last part was talking about my self. Your both right though even if you work hard that does not mean you will be successful. But to me I just think we choose what path we go on. Forget about the hard work to success thing. We choose where we walk and who we hang out with. Life isn't fair. People have limits and they were just born with it. But success isn't exactly the same for everybody. Hell a success for me would be to get out of my state and just go places. I think success for me is happiness. I definitely know the world has huge problems in it. I don't think the US is the center of the universe. But what if you do hard work that makes you happy,does that mean the person has a breath of success. Walking on a path of happiness wouldn't that be success? Even if people have limits?

@Airego There will always be good and bad. Success is just what you choose it to be.

@Gwendolyn2018 I'm just trying to look at the world in a positive view nothing more. Life's hard I guess. But I'll still keep searching for happiness even though I feel like it doesn't exist for me.

@Gwendolyn2018 you are very strong I hope your happiness stays with you. Thank you. You made me realise a few things.

1

Murder was planned in this last schooling shooting. The murder had been telling everyone he was going to do it, even the 'FBI' I am not going to play word games with you. It is stupid. I
say and I mean it, some people like to argue. I don't. When you take another's free will, it is usually against the law Now make a comment if you wish, but I am not arguing!

2

If you look both ways before crossing the road then yes you do . I do

1

To keep it philosophical. I have free will because I have no choice. Science has come far. Research shows that your mind has already made a decision before we are aware of it. Do we call it free will then? Perhaps in the very moments that we experience a choice, our minds are rewriting history, fooling us into thinking that this choice—that was actually completed after its consequences were subconsciously perceived—was a choice that we had made all along. Postdictive illusion are typically explained by noting that there’s a delay in the time it takes information out in the world to reach conscious awareness: Because it lags slightly behind reality. Which can give you the illusion of free will. I am not saying we have no free will or do we have none?

2

If we don't have free will, then don't you have to concede that there is a god or some other power that controls your will for you? Isn't that the opposite of atheism and to a slightly lesser extent, agnosticism?

I believe in neither gods, nor free will. Reality, to me, is a regression of similar events towards a state of entropy, with the ability to mutate. The idea of god was just as necessary to the development of mankind as the idea of free will. I moreso just side with the argument, that resides in psychology and neuroscience, stating we make most of our decisions off of unconscious interactions in our brain and body, and in all reality, are moreso programmed to react then to actually have any serious intervention in the whole experience.

@Airego....Interesting thought. Ironically, Christians believe God gave us free will because he wants us to choose to worship him. We're free to make choices, but we have consequences for our choices. I resent it when, say, a group of kids take a flight, the plane crashes and there were survivors.. Invariably, some jackass will tell the survivor, "Wow, God really must have a plan for you!" Plan my ass. The survivors just happened to sit in a seat that didn't get destroyed; or maybe he had better reflexes and ducked. Anyway, how does that make the parents of the deceased feel? If I smoke for 40 yrs, ignoring all the warnings, then develop oat cell lung csncer, its not Gods fault I have cancer; its my own fault. I CHOSE to smoke, I CHOSE to ignore the warnings, so I must face the consequences. But to answer the question, yes, I believe in free will.

1

I think when it all comes down to it, what we do is determined by our biology, chemistry and physics. However, it's such a tangled mess to get from "I like chocolate" to "This atom in this molecule does this when I eat chocolate" that it hardly matters.

I agree, Amy. I think genetics are to blame for our getting diseases.

1

Can't make up my mind on that.

1

Yes, I believe in free will.

1

I am often unsure. Not believing in destiny or god doesn't necessarily lead to free will. Biologically, we are really constructed of many other independent organisms. They drive our perceived needs and desires as much as anything. It's difficult to say how much of what we want and do is driven by other living things.

It is certainly useful as a construct and on a day to day basis I do act on and emphasize free will as it relates to personal responsibility and living my life at large but I don't know that it is the actual reality.

Kurzgesgat touches on the idea here:

3

Believing anything is "decided long before humanity ever came into play", implies someone or something else did the deciding. I don't believe that for one second.
I have free will, and I make my own choices. I deal with the consequences of my choices, for good or for ill. I do indeed have free will.

But for what reason do you make these choices? If you look into neuroscience you'll see a current debate on just how "freely" we make decisions, and the amount of studies reflecting an unconscious algorithm being the main contributor to our actions makes me question whether or not we really are free to decide, or if we, and the universe itself, regress infinitely off a single, though dastardly complex and extremely abstract, equation. Yes I may have some level of personal reflection, where I remember past experiences and attempt to react accordingly so that I don't suffer, but even that is an extremely finite regress, and dependent upon personal experience; which seems rather chaotic and out of ones control.

@Airego I generally don't delve that deeply into things, unless they are of particular interest to me. I think in many ways, we humans make things way more complicated than they really need to be. But that's just me, and everyone else is entitled to do and thank however they please. I prefer to keep things as simple as possible. That's what works for me.

@KKGator When I began studying quantum mechanics I read a quote that changed the way I saw complexity. The most complicated part of quantum mechanics is just how simple it is.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:26481
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.