What Do You Think of Free Will?

[Mysterious_0ne]

I want to know people's opinions on free will. Do you believe that we choose what will happen to us or can we not escape our fate? Do you think free will is just an illusion that we have to make us feel like we are in control when destiny has already been written? Do you think there is a planned out destiny but we have the ability to change it? I was just wondering what people thought about it. Please tell me about your opinion.  

[Mysterious_0ne]

BUMP  

[Everet]

What I think of free will? I think its just an illusion like everything else in reality. Im not stating that everything in existance is not here, what I mean is that just like a magic trick, spectators are all bedazzled and amazed by the trick if they are led on, and then the inside-outside of reality for them becomes contorted because of what was just either a break in the laws that people think govern reality. You think it happens that way but also think maybe its some sort of trickery to make the illusion an illusion. But all of this is based purely on perspective of everyone around us. Since the world is not the same through everyone's eyes its always different and stranger than the last, I think everything around us is to a sort of situational illusion (hope that's right, jus stole the title from a sort of irony) because everytihng is taken differently from every person. Then when I think of free will, I think of in a given situation where you make the choice, but here's the catch. Why? Why the choices now? Why are the choices the way they are? People would think that is fate but I would think of it as eternal abyss of questions unanswered and thus to a paradox of 'you can't get there from here.' Its an illusion to me though, not by the why, not by the when, not by the way it is and why it is that way; I say its illusion because of the basic concept of Physics does not revolve around humans, we revolve around Physics and every law of space in the universe. Its an illusion because it doesnt exist in the real world, only in the minds of humans and the human conscience and other organisms able to think and make choices. Do you think the atoms in anything have choices in fusing, diffusing and the like? No, because its forces at work: gravity of the environment towards a mass, structure of the molecule, and energy of the said being that makes it work. No choice just forces at work. And you can use this concept into anything and everything humans question, in my opinion. Thats what I think of free will.  

[bluecherry]

My stance:

Free will=real, destiny=illusion. People have their free will, animals have a more limited amount of will due to possession of hard wired in instincts and so on, inanimate things/plants have no will. This limited will of animals and less intelligent life forms (bacteria and such) and no will of plants and inanimate things is just typically seen and confused for being reason for "destiny." People think it happens without anybody really distinctly choosing for something to happen and "Oh no! The world and life and everything must all be planned out inescapably! We are all but puppets in the hands of some puppet master! (whether that master be a conscious thing or not.)" We can do what we will, we have options within the limits of what is physically possible. People also confuse things in retrospect. They see they had choices and took a certain option and now that they can't go back in time and redo the choice, it's done, they think of that as meaning like that's how it ALWAYS was, like they could NEVER have chosen otherwise. And besides, just because you only may have one GOOD choice doesn't mean you have no choice at all. You'd be an idiot to take worse choices then you had to, yes, but it doesn't mean the option was not there and you didn't freely choose between them on your own with no invisible force compelling you to do anything and over-riding your right and ability to decide for yourself. And perhaps we have boundaries on our free will, yes, physics, limiting what is possible to us, but INSIDE those boundaries we can do what we will. That's MY definition of free will -- you can do what you want in the limits of what you can.

 

[Eudes IV]

What is exactly the free will [ philosophically ] ?
- You will be independant in opinion , which means that you will be able to choose freely, without any exterior influences, once you'll got rid of all your preferences, because they are an obstacle to a free choice : they are an influence
Therefore, you have to put yourself into a situation of radical neutrality to choose absolutely freely .

-But, if you become neutral to a choice, how are you going to chose? What will determin your choice since you've got rid of all your opinions/preferences/etc ?
So , you will choose by indifference . Then it's not a choice anymore , since you choose by hazard.
Which is why Free Will is an illusion

- Now, philosophically, Fate has nothing to do with that. Fate is a belief. Beliefs and other popular superstitions cannot be put on the same level as philosophy, because philosophy is based upon logic, whereas Beliefs are based upon nothing but your perception & your experience, which you cannot surely trust. [Socrate said ' the only thing I know is that I know nothing ' ; Platon himself said that the sensible world, the one in which we live, is an artefact , our perceptions are misled ]

- My conclusion would be that Free Will is an illusion ,not for the reasons you've evoked, but because the choice by hazard goes against the definition itself of Will.

Maybe this wasn't exactly the kind of answer you expected, but that is real philosophy :/

 

[bluecherry]

MonOstatos

[Socrates said ' the only thing I know is that I know nothing ' ; Plato himself said that the sensible world, the one in which we live, is an artefact , our perceptions are misled ]

And then Aristotle came and said they were both wrong. xp

And I think the definition of free will in question here is that of EXTERNAL forces over riding you and making you choose things without you knowing it or your "choices" not really existing at all because their is but one predetermined "option" you will take. As long as the choice is done due to INTERNAL factors, whatever they may be, and your brain is not under control of some one or something else, then for the sake of this debate, it's still free will as in that of individuals determining their own actions within what is possible.

 

[Eudes IV]

bluecherry

MonOstatos

[Socrates said ' the only thing I know is that I know nothing ' ; Plato himself said that the sensible world, the one in which we live, is an artefact , our perceptions are misled ]

And then Aristotle came and said they were both wrong. xp

And I think the definition of free will in question here is that of EXTERNAL forces over riding you and making you choose things without you knowing it or your "choices" not really existing at all because their is but one predetermined "option" you will take. As long as the choice is done due to INTERNAL factors, whatever they may be, and your brain is not under control of some one or something else, then for the sake of this debate, it's still free will as in that of individuals determining their own actions within what is possible.

Perhaps, but Aristotle isn't either the universal truth. And I'm not so sure of what you said, since Aristotle was a quite fervent disciple of Plato

Well, internal choices , as you'd say, what are they due to? Where do they come from? What will make you choose something over something else?
It's necessarily either something :
- that you've learnt by 'experience'
- or that you've been taught.

In both case, they are from external influences.
How could you know and be sure that your idea is really your idea? Therefore how could you be sure that you choose by your very own will , without being influenced by the outside?


Well, maybe this isn't exactly the question here, but , to me 1) the idea of Fate doesn't belong to Philosophy, 2) you cannot discuss something without having the exact definition of this something. Even if it has nothing to do with the subject

 

[bluecherry]

Oh true, I know Aristotle is not some final say on anything, but he was a pretty darn bright guy for that time off which many people have since built ideas. This is true of Plato and Socrates too though I know. I bring up Aristotle mostly though since you're right - Plato was Socrates' student, building off and upon what he learned from him and advancing things and then Aristotle was Plato's student builiding upon the teachings from Plato, however, coming after both of them and getting their cumulative findings taught to him, he did in fact then reject their ideas that the senses can not give you any real information about the world. In fact, what you said about where people's internal decisions are made off relates to what Aristotle said quite well, his saying on the subject being essentialy (paraphrasing, I'll try to look up the exact words if you want though)"Nothing enters the mind except through the senses." I say that though this is true, you don't just get some information popping into or implanted into your head out of nowhere, the decisions are yours because you can take the information you got externally and then evaluate it yourself. Reason and logic are one thing for example. You may only have been given a few pieces of information, but those few pieces you can then look at together and come to another conclusional bit of information. Like you know your Aunt Judy, who you are currently looking at, has red hair and you know that both you and your uncle, John, are looking at her with perfectly fine vision and lighting, and then you learn your uncle is entirely convinced her hair is purple and green. Nobody has said so, there have been no conclusive tests done, but you can conclude your uncle either is crazy or on some kind of mind altering substance. Or how about personal preference? Like maybe you're getting lunch and there are two things you can afford, both have the same cost, but you like the taste of one thing better then the other so get that one. You got the information about the food and the cost and all that externally, but in the end when you had equal external reasons to take either, you had the internal reason of personal preference that made you decide to take one thing instead of the other. You could say in a case of external influence versus if the internal reasons are entirely dependent upon and controlled by external influences to the point of not having even the ability to "choose" otherwise --individual people with the same external influences, if there were no factors other then those external influences, there would be no variation in choices when given the same information. Everybody would be similar to machines in you can put the same data in and always get the same result out.

I do agree entirely though with you that you really can't discuss something without having the exact definition of it in any case. Before going farther with this, what we'd really need is a more exact definition for "free will" to BE discussed.

 

[Mysterious_0ne]

Everet

What I think of free will? I think its just an illusion like everything else in reality. Im not stating that everything in existance is not here, what I mean is that just like a magic trick, spectators are all bedazzled and amazed by the trick if they are led on, and then the inside-outside of reality for them becomes contorted because of what was just either a break in the laws that people think govern reality. You think it happens that way but also think maybe its some sort of trickery to make the illusion an illusion. But all of this is based purely on perspective of everyone around us. Since the world is not the same through everyone's eyes its always different and stranger than the last, I think everything around us is to a sort of situational illusion (hope that's right, jus stole the title from a sort of irony) because everytihng is taken differently from every person. Then when I think of free will, I think of in a given situation where you make the choice, but here's the catch. Why? Why the choices now? Why are the choices the way they are? People would think that is fate but I would think of it as eternal abyss of questions unanswered and thus to a paradox of 'you can't get there from here.' Its an illusion to me though, not by the why, not by the when, not by the way it is and why it is that way; I say its illusion because of the basic concept of Physics does not revolve around humans, we revolve around Physics and every law of space in the universe. Its an illusion because it doesnt exist in the real world, only in the minds of humans and the human conscience and other organisms able to think and make choices. Do you think the atoms in anything have choices in fusing, diffusing and the like? No, because its forces at work: gravity of the environment towards a mass, structure of the molecule, and energy of the said being that makes it work. No choice just forces at work. And you can use this concept into anything and everything humans question, in my opinion. Thats what I think of free will.

::Applauds::  

[Everet]

Mysterious_0ne

Everet

What I think of free will? I think its just an illusion like everything else in reality. Im not stating that everything in existance is not here, what I mean is that just like a magic trick, spectators are all bedazzled and amazed by the trick if they are led on, and then the inside-outside of reality for them becomes contorted because of what was just either a break in the laws that people think govern reality. You think it happens that way but also think maybe its some sort of trickery to make the illusion an illusion. But all of this is based purely on perspective of everyone around us. Since the world is not the same through everyone's eyes its always different and stranger than the last, I think everything around us is to a sort of situational illusion (hope that's right, jus stole the title from a sort of irony) because everytihng is taken differently from every person. Then when I think of free will, I think of in a given situation where you make the choice, but here's the catch. Why? Why the choices now? Why are the choices the way they are? People would think that is fate but I would think of it as eternal abyss of questions unanswered and thus to a paradox of 'you can't get there from here.' Its an illusion to me though, not by the why, not by the when, not by the way it is and why it is that way; I say its illusion because of the basic concept of Physics does not revolve around humans, we revolve around Physics and every law of space in the universe. Its an illusion because it doesnt exist in the real world, only in the minds of humans and the human conscience and other organisms able to think and make choices. Do you think the atoms in anything have choices in fusing, diffusing and the like? No, because its forces at work: gravity of the environment towards a mass, structure of the molecule, and energy of the said being that makes it work. No choice just forces at work. And you can use this concept into anything and everything humans question, in my opinion. Thats what I think of free will.

::Applauds::

Thank you  

[Seaworks]

I believe that free will does exist, and what people consider "destiny" is, in fact, a "padding" from unfortunate events: as in, "well, it was meant to happen, so I'll come through all right."
Believing in fate is like believing in God: there *is* actually proof that it dosen't exist, but it's such a comforting explanation it's better to just live a fantasy.

 

[bluecherry]

That's basically how I see it too. People want to feel when something goes wrong that it was for the best and/or HAD to happen.

 

[dfadsfasdferwer]

i believe that although we have a predestined course, we believe we can change it. if things arent set in stone, why dont you walk up to your mother or father one day and start cursing? because you know how they are going to react. how could we possibly know that if we are all independent and every time we do something it ultimately changes our fate? also its ironic that bad things are seen as fated while good things are seen as something that happened as a result of our actions. people refuse to own up to doing bad things basically.  

[Symptom of the Universe]

I think it needs to be clarified as to the "end" of this question. Regardless of if free will exists or not, the world is going to look the same to us. The world is fundementally the same if we have free will or are determined.  

[bluecherry]

Going off something brought up in a previous post, if we do not have free will, all we do is fated, then why doesn't everybody just do whatever, whenever, regardless of reason or consequence? If it was all fate, then you could not have done anything otherwise and are not to be blamed for what happened or will happen in any case ever. If you can not change things or be blamed, then why ever have the concept of "justice" in this world? it would be a pointless thing because nobody is ever responsible for their actions, good or bad, and so there is no reason to either punish or reward them. Why have the concept of "will power" then -- you have no will AND no power, so again, it's a waste. The camp that believes in unalterable fate AND that fate has some reasonable set up does not make sense because there would be no productive reason for the existence of concepts which would be useless such as the ones I mentioned above.