Do we have free will?

Despite what we have been led to believe, I do not believe that humans have free will.

We are, in my mind, bags of chemicals. We are composed of cells which do their job. How much of our body do we really control? Physical movement. That's about it. I can't consciously regulate my heart rate or whether I feel pain or something.

I believe we respond to situations in a way that we have learned to. We are products of our environment, therefore, with enough knowledge I think it is possible to predict the actions of someone in a certain situation.

I believe we are preprogrammed with all the knowledge we accumulate throughout our lives, and that is what we utilize to make decisions and what dictates how we live our lives.

You might argue that the fact that we have thoughts indicates we have free will, but I would argue that our thoughts are the product of information we already have, and we're simply experiencing that working out in our mind.

Anyone have any other thoughts?

 

Actually people can do both of those. It takes an incredible amount of training but people can do it. Monks do it all of the time actually as part of their training and meditation.

 

I honestly have absolutely no clue whether we have free will or not. However, in defense of free will, I would ask for you to imagine the following scenario.

Let's say there was a person sitting in a room. I put a pencil on the person's desk. I then asked the person, for every minute in the next ten minutes, to decide whether to pick up the pencil or not (so, the pencil can be picked up a maximum of 10 times). If he/she picks up the pencil, I'd tally it down.

The only stimulus to pick up the pencil is that I gave the choice for the person to pick it up. But whether he/she picks it up is entirely up to him/her. Every person would yield different results in such an experiment, hence giving a sense of randomness to the outcome. This randomness can, in someway, suggest free will.

Now, you may attach a monitor to the person's brain and say, "Hey, look, the brain has activity in 'X' region before he/she picks up the pen!" But the question is, why was activity elicited in this region of the brain at that specific time?

 

There needs to be some sort of stimulation in the cerebral cortex (the motor part that controls hand movements) in order for the body to actually pick up the pen, right?



The integration of concepts from behavioral psychology and the idea of "fate" is interesting, and even kind of eerie imo.
Actions are the products of our thoughts, ideas, desires, etc (internal stimuli), most of which are the result of external stimuli (places we go, people we meet, things we see or read, etc) encountering us seemingly at random. But if they are random, then do we have any control over how things will turn out? Are they bound to end up happening a certain way for us, even if the decision is made to challenge the idea that we are not in control (which would be an internal stimuli)?



great topic

 

Yes, there does. I can't recall properly but I remember seeing a study which said that around half a second prior to the action being performed, there would be activity in another region in the brain (not so related to motor activities, I believe). The conclusions of this study were that that part of the brain pre-determines/controls our actions and hence, free will doesn't exist.

But still, I ask, what elicits that part of the brain to show activity? One may say 'external stimuli', but in the example I gave, there is no external stimuli.

 

Well, you instructed the person on what to do, right? There were given orders from an external source

 

Yeah, I mentioned before that this could be considered a stimulus, but I only gave them the choice (in essence, I gave them "free will"). I didn't tell them to pick the pencil up at this certain time. I just said, for every minute, make the decision of whether or not to pick it up. Here's what I said:

"The only stimulus to pick up the pencil is that I gave the choice for the person to pick it up. But whether he/she picks it up is entirely up to him/her. Every person would yield different results in such an experiment, hence giving a sense of randomness to the outcome. This randomness can, in someway, suggest free will."

 

Yeah but whether or not the person has any desire to pick up a pencil, and how patient they are is dependent on how that has developed in their life.

The person being given the chance to pick up a pencil once a minute isn't just a blank slate with an empty mind.

There are more factors in play than just "pick it up or don't".

I mean if you gave me that choice, I'd immediately pick up the pencil. First because I like holding things, and second because I'd probably spin it around in my hand to entertain myself.

 

Well it's not supposed to be taken THAT literally, but okay, let's scratch the pencil idea then. Let's say I tell someone, for each minute in the next 10 minutes, to decide whether to say the word 'bleh' or 'blah', and for each time 'bleh' is said, it would be recorded. I'm trying to think of possible 'factors' which could lead to a person saying a certain word, but I really can't think of any. The whole point is that at the end, even if you were to repeat the same experiment again with the same person, you will most likely get different results. Such results appear random, but they can also be a blow against determinism, as they just cannot be predicted by the experimenter, even if we were able to gather all 'factors' (as vague as they can be). Now you can boil it down to chemicals - perhaps we have a pseudo-random system within our brains which activates in such experiments. Perhaps everything can be boiled down to the quantum level, which appears to be random. In such cases, this experiment wouldn't really provide any support for free will then.

Edit: Also note that you're not given the choice to pick up the pencil once. You're given the choice to pick it up 10 times. If you're saying you'd pick it up every single time because you like holding things and whatnot, I kind of have my doubts against that.

 

I agree with you in many ways, but I also disagree with you.

Yes you are right we cant regulate heart rate or anything, but when you speak of the "free will" of humanbeings, what our insides and such do have nothing to do with "free will" as free will is more of what we do with ourselves.

We also do NOT respond to things as we learned to. My mother always taught me to "walk away" or "turn the other cheek" or w/e that shits about but if sum1 gets up in my face my first reaction is to put him on his ass.

Not long ago sum1 stole my moms purse at walmart, she says "oh well there wasnt anything in it but 10 dollars cash and a few receipts". Thats the reaction I would of "learned" from her. But i responded and said "10 dollars or 10,000 dollars, its the fact sum1s stealing from and disrespecting you" I then went into the bathroom, as where else would a grown man go to go thru a purse? And yeah, there was a black male sifting thru the purse and I wrapped my hand around the back of his head and busted the air drier off of the wall with his face. I did not "learn" this from my mother. I was not taught to respond with violence I was taught the exact opposite. But, since I was a young child Ive been prone to violence and thus, use it often.

So, in a way, you could say I do not have free will, but I personally think that violent acts such as splitting sum1 heads open 5 different ways over a 5$ purse with 10$ in it is a choice. and wud thus say I have free will. But of course, you may say that I was prone to do this, that it was impossible to turn out any other way and therefore do not have free will. But there are times I have walked away from something instead of executing my views of "its not how big the offence, its the disrespect of the offence" just simply told em to go fuck themselves and left it at that. I believe that is also free will, that I chose not to hit them with sumthing blunt becuz I chose to.

As anything sum1 says is their free choice, by the logic you are using, could also be said is NOT free choice. But I do believe some things are set in stone and somethings are not.

I personally see free will as a "belief". Such as not having free will wud mean that "god" has designed a set path for us to walk on. That if I were to be shot down and my body violated by 10 chinese men 5 years from this day, those who do not "believe" in free will would say that this was known and planned by "god" long before I was even born. I personally dont believe that shit. I believe our ways and our beliefs are the only things set in stone. What we believe in and the way we are, such as many would call me a "mean" or "cold hearted" person for I do not forgive nor forget and at some point in time I WILL get you back for fuckin me over. I dont have the free will to change that. Thats set. Thats who I am. But What I do such as chosing to be violent at one point in time, or to just "let this one go" or even if I put a slug in this dumbass's brain for rippin me off on a bag of weed or if I just simply knock his ass out, I believe is my free will and I am free to chose how to react to each situation. Unless under the influence one might not have "free will" and will react however the drugs/alcohol make them react.

This is all just my opinion on the matter, as there is no way to "test" free will and prove that it does or does not exist.

I have both got in fights and walked away over being ripped off the same amount of money on the same thing. This is my show of free will. It was the exact same situation. Once I beat up a good friend for stealing 25$ when he was supposed to be getting me a quarter of bud. I had another friend that was no better a fighter than the other friend, who did the exact same thing. He was no less nor no more of a friend, He was no stronger, maybe a little bit weaker, but I simply chose to say fuck it.

So with enough knowledge you could not predict my reaction as it could equally go different ways. If you stole any amount of money from me it could end in me splittin you up with a padlock, or it could end with me just not "feelin like it" and walkin away. There is no way to predict my reactions to such a thing as my reaction differs each time someone tries to fuck me in the ass.