Free will?

There are many possible stances regarding free will. And it is a highly debatable topic. At the moment I am undecided but I am interested to hear your arguments for your choice. Originally I had ideas similar to causal determinism but after reading other choices I'm unsure.

Please keep any religious ideas out of this; leave it for another thread. When answering assume any religion you may believe in is incorrect.

Basically, does free will exist? This may help you to read about possible stances http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

 

imo
reality is probabilities, which means everything has a certain chance of happening, based on the context.
i do not feel we have feel will. i feel we have the perception of free will.
we rationalize many of our actions after the fact to deal with out own lack of free will.

 

It appears you selected that reality is indetermined. Care to explain the choice?

 

My "belief" is that we are put here for a reason and there is an ending determined for us. How we get to these two points is up to us though.

I never believe that their will be complete free will. Sure we have the power to make a choice, but at the same time this choice has limited options most of the time.

 

here you go, an explanation

 

so the obvious question is, do we have free will or the appearance of free will?

 

I dont necessarily agree with this theory, but it states that your DNA and your social interactions determine the decisions you (and everyone else) will make. Therefore, if your life was repeated, it would go the exact same way (assuming you didn't know it was a repeat). Therefore, free will does not exist and life, while not predetermined, is not alterable.

 

You can change aspects of life, as killing someone would have certain consequences different to which would happen if you left him badly injured. There also the random factor which makes things happen or not happen. It's all relative in my opinion, depending on your will.

 

my theory states that these things are not predetermined, the odds of them occurring are tho.

what do you think of that?

 

My stance on free will?
Theres no such thing in our current society.

Putting it very bluntly.

All governments exercise coercion, 99% of countries have government.

coercion and free will are binary opposites.

The other 1% were government does not exist?

A numerous number of psychological traits come into play such as conformity, which secludes free will.

Reality is indetermined, and free will does not exist.

 

I'm a little confused on what you said. I agree that they are not predetermined. Are you saying that if your life was redone it would happen differently? And if it was redone trillions of times outcomes would reoccur?

 

I'm fairly sure he's saying that life is not 100% pre determined, however the chances of certain events happening in someones life are themselves pre determined.

For example, the chances of a malnourished child in Ethiopia becoming a multi billionaire are pre determined to be 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001% However the fact that he will definitely not be is not pre determined.

 

There is simply no evidence for free will aside from our own subjective perception, which I place absolutely no value in. Our brains are made up of ordinary atoms which interact in ordinary ways with other ordinary atoms, a process which the subjective concept of a consciousness or soul should have no control over. Sure there's quantum mechanics, which would suggest that maybe everything isn't pre-determined, but instead all based on probabilities, but that has nothing to do with whether or not we have free will.

Why do most people believe in free will? I think the most likely explanation is that it's beneficial for our mental health to believe we are in control, and therefore it's an evolutionarily advantageous perception.

 

If we didn't have free we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
If there was no free will who would be controlling our destinies ?

Saying there's no free will is saying like were all robots controlled by something.

 

There is no doubt free will and it does exist, though it is obvious that this isn't the case globally. However everyone can exert their own free will such as choosing what to think and the like.

 

this is a philosophical debate about probabilities and determinism, not whether some people are forced into slavery or not

 

wtf... two robots can be programed to have this conversation. the fact we are having it proves nothing.

who? why does it need to be a who?
try a what. the what being the laws of physics

we are all complex organisms that could be compared to incredibly complex robots. we are controlled by our environment, our genes and luck.

 

I agree with this for the most part, however I don't think we are born with a predetermined ending, I think we go through life make choices that will affect different things further on in life, such as choosing to do good and excel in school, versus slacking off and neglecting to care throughout your school career.

The first option is going to better your future for sure, but some people who slack off and than after high school end up getting lucky and maybe getting an even better job than the person who put forth effort to pass. Just a small example.

I think life is all about choices, and we have the free will to control and react to instances that we're put in, and these "instances" have different choices with different outcomes for each choice. Our free will gives us the option to go about the instance as we see fit, thus determining how our life turns out.