Free Will: Missing In Action.
You, and your body, in its entirety, is a biophysical and biochemical factory. Stating the obvious, what goes into your system is not the same as what comes out of your system.
You have no free will control over those natural biophysical and biochemical processes. Your free will is missing in action. Some examples:
If you take in more calories than you expend you'll gain weight. You cannot free will your body into changing your fat into something else.
Food poisoning is an all too common occurrence. Pity you can't free will it away when it happens to you.
If you break a bone you cannot free will the natural healing process up a notch or two.
If you breathe in chlorine gas instead of oxygen - tough. Your alleged free will is useless.
You have no free will control over your gag reflex.
You can't free will your detoxification process to hurry up.
Why might you take over-the-counter or prescription drugs? Because you can't free will your body into manufacturing them on its own.
If you have had a particularly bad experience hence memory of same, you can't just free will it away and forget about it.
Perhaps you need glasses or a hearing aid. Why can't your alleged free will just deal with these internal bodily issues?
Some people want a gender-change operation. That seems to be the expensive way of doing things, assuming free will of course, which given its mind-over-matter nature should be able to accomplish your objective for free.
You cannot free will away your headache.
You might say you have free will to raise your leg while standing up, but if you only have one leg that free will sort of flies out the window and is of no use to you.
In short, you cannot mentally command the particles, forces and fields part and parcel of your very own body to do your bidding. If you could you could give yourself superpowers like X-Ray vision. If you cannot mentally control the particles, forces and fields in and of your body, you have no mental control over your body's chemistry - you can't mentally change your blood type to suit your transfusion needs. Therefore, the upshot of all of this is that despite appearances to the contrary, you have no mental control, no free will, over your own body's natural makeup and processes, of which that alleged free will organ, the brain, is a natural part thereof.
The decision-making process isn't some airy-fairy non-physical activity. It is grounded in biophysics and in biochemistry as actual experiments as related by interviewees on Big Question themed TV shows and websites like "Closer to Truth" (CTT) have demonstrated or related. Since you have no mind-over-matter control over those biophysical and biochemical processes, you have no control over your decisions. Ergo, you have no free will.
Now if you want to argue that you do have mental free will control over your body, even if only in a very few isolated cases, then that is indeed a demonstration of mind-over-matter. But why stop there? If you don't stop there that opens up another can of worms. If you have some degree of mental control over the biophysics and biochemistry of your body then perhaps that mind-over-matter control can and should be extended into the wider community or environment. That opens up the whole realm of psychic phenomena like telekinesis. Are you sure you want to go down that path?
1
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
4 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Your definition of free will is more like the Law of Attraction, which is a load of new age bull.
FatherOfNyx
Level 7
Dec 16, 2018
0
@johnprytz Law of Attraction is the belief that if you think about something, it happens. How you described free will is pretty much the Law of Attraction. Basically willing things into existence.
@johnprytz Lol, so not being able to free will the pain away is different than not being able to will the pain away? Ooook. I don't think not having "free will" over your entire body is a good argument against free will though. That's like saying you don't have the ability to drive a car since you can't drive a car in the clouds.
@johnprytz The concept of free will has always been the ability to make your own choices/determine your own fate. Free will was never about 100% of your body. You're basically linking 2 different things to deny 1. It's like when theists link evolution and the big bang to deny one or the other when they are unrelated.
@johnprytz We are biological machines with an operator.. and like all machines, you don't control every aspect. When you drive your car, you work the steering wheel, shifter, and pedals. You don't directly control the linkage or fuel injectors. When you are watching TV, you hit a button on the remote but you don't directly control the flow of electrons through its circuits. No matter the machine you operate, you can't directly control every aspect of it nor can you make it perform outside its physical limits. The human body has physical limits and it's biologically inefficient to have to control every aspect. That's why we have a subconscious operating system to take care of things like controlling your heartbeat or adjusting stomach acid levels. Your consciousness is what allows you to issue commands for your subconscious to follow the best it can. That is your biological free will that is a function of the brain.
@johnprytz When it comes to the brain, how can you prove anything to an independent observer? You could say that what you see as blue is what I see as green and what I see as blue is what you see as red. You could say that church bells sound to you as song birds sound to me. Until we have mapped out every minute detail of the brain and have it 100% decoded, we have to rely on ourselves. If you want to test your free will, just use it. Next time your stomach is grumbling, don't eat. You just used your free will to deny your biological urges. If you want to poop, just thinking about pooping and chances are you'll have to poop. You just used your free will to poop. Your free will is your ability to make (or deny) things happen within the physical limits of your body.
@johnprytz So long as that alternative explanation had a basis in reality, otherwise the scientific method cannot be applied. If you're not concerned about it being based in reality, there's literally an infinite amount of possibilities and you'll be stuck trying to disprove them for eternity.
Some will say you writing here misses it but I think you have an excellent take on free will. What most people miss on anything about "free will" is that this idea came out of biblical writings because god has to allow you a totally free will in making up your mind to serve him. Serving god has to be "your choice" and not something forced upon you.
I've said this before and will say it again. The rapist had the free will to rape that woman. The woman also had the free will to be raped.
DenoPenno
Level 9
Dec 16, 2018
0
In answer to your last sentence, Yes.
You wanted to write your post. You made a conscious decision do so and your body obeyed.
If your post is nothing but just mindless automatic writing why should we read it?
I have limited control over the internal workings of my iPhone but I have a lot of choices about how to use the iPhone. My body is the same.
How do you account for the placebo effect? For positive thinking? Apparently in many cases we do have control over the internal processes of our bodies.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
Dec 16, 2018
0
“Ah, but how do you know the Devil didn't make me do it, or maybe it was pixies who possessed me and imposed their will on me?”
You are speaking of yourself as though you were your body. “You” are actually those pixies. Your true identity is the cosmos, everywhere at all times.
The placebo effect actually does present a problem for those who think consciousness is created by the brain and that there’s no free will. The thought or belief that the body is healed actually brings real, measurable and testable changes to the physical body. Voila, it’s mind over matter—something that can’t happen under the materialist world view—but it happens nevertheless. And yes, it works the other way too, but it’s still mind over matter.
So far as an experiment that demonstrates free will, this response is one such. I had a conscious desire to respond and I coaxed my body into action. The desire arose from factors not totally under my control, but I need not have given in to that desire. This kind of friendly banter is enjoyable for some reason, but so are other activities. It all comes down to my conscious awareness—without that I’d be nothing but a robot, and would have no free will.
I agree completely. My favorite one is the Dilemma of Determinism. It proves using logic why free will doesn’t exist. It divides the decision making process into two categories: it either happens randomly or it is determined by something. If our decisions were random we might as well roll dice for every decision we make. No free will here. But what about the alternative? If our choices are determined by something then this does not allow for free will either. But those are the only options. Random or not random. And neither give you free will.
MrControversy
Level 7
Dec 16, 2018
0
If our choices are determined by something, couldn’t that thing be a conscious being?
@WilliamFleming not quite I would argue. If our decisions are always determined by something then we might as well have computers for brains and our decisions determined by its programming.
My take is that all our choices have factors that predetermine them, but the choice we make is just one of many possibilities. The choice that has the most influences is typically the one we go with when we are operating subconsciously, but at any moment we can consciously interrupt the process and go with another choice.
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
Share this post
Related Groups More
Memes R Us
3037 members
Progressives, Socialists, and Black/Palestinian Lives Matter
2458 members
Categories
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.