You don't have Free Will.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


Good Point AfterInfinity
Almost like a human influences the video game character activities
or how the avatars in movie AVATAR where injected, some form wise maybe wi fi into a environment suit (based on the current environment)

So 1 wonders can it be that you or 1 if not many have a something more hmm basal ganglia related influencing your physical-from a more spiritual understood position? my 2 cents

reply to post by Covertblack


Absolutely not! NOT ONE choice you ever make has not in some way been influenced by an outside cause. You are never FREE to make a choice outside of a cause. You possess a WILL to make a choice.

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by TheBandit795

 

You seem to be suggesting that because 98% of my actions are subconsciously motivated, they do not constitute free will. If they are not free will, then they are against my will, implying that I am to some extent possessed or influenced against my will by an outside force.

The truth is, nothing can force me to do something against my will without making its presence known. And since I don't sense anything that would indicate a foreign influence deliberately guiding my actions, I can safely conclude until further evaluation that I am operating under my own free will. Just because it is subconscious, doesn't mean it is not me. My subconscious is crafted and cultivated by my conscious, which is a real-time manifestation of my free will.

If you can refute this, I'd be interested in hearing it.

This is balderdash logic. You assert that negative choices somehow constitute possession? Tell me one, just one choice you've ever made that has not been influenced or externally caused.

You're right, nothing is FORCING you to do something against your will, but your WILL does give you the ability to make a choice, good or bad. You can certainly operate under YOUR WILL, but never, ever have FREE WILL.

You are FREE to make choices, but every single choice you make, and thousands of them every day, are CAUSED.

The only way you would EVER be in a state of FREE WILL is if you possessed the ability to make choices absent of any external causation. And that, my friend, would mean you are a God.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


First define "you". If you mean "you" is only your conscious mind, then you have (much) no free will. But you probably mean that the subconscious is "you" as well? Right? Or do you mean something that you possess? A creation of your conscious mind?

IMO the subconscious is not something that is created by your mind. It's probably more so that they are were both created at the same time, but I don't have anything right now to support that belief.

Question: How many decisions do we make each day??? What do you guys think???

Originally posted by Freenrgy2
reply to post by Covertblack

 

Absolutely not! NOT ONE choice you ever make has not in some way been influenced by an outside cause. You are never FREE to make a choice outside of a cause. You possess a WILL to make a choice.

That's what I'm saying, if you simply made such a choice you would be broke, dead, or miserable. Of course you will be selecting from a predetermined set of choices. It's not like you are going to invent a new choice at this point in the game.

Originally posted by TheBandit795
Question: How many decisions do we make each day??? What do you guys think???

edit on 2-5-2013 by TheBandit795 because: (no reason given)

Haha good one. I tend to try and avoid making decisions. Is that my free will? (excluding subconscious decisions)

reply to post by TheBandit795

Question: How many decisions do we make each day??? What do you guys think???

Thousands. Each decision determined by a nearly instantaneous process of cognition composed of conditioning, instinct, and conscious computation. Every decision is both an action and a reaction formulated from variables taken from the subconscious and the exterior, ultimately culminating on a judgment that originates within our minds. Unless you know of a technology or methodology that can forcibly plant an irresistible impulse in our head, I think your argument regarding the nonexistence of free will is invalid.

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” - Charles R. Swindoll

Just because you don't always take a moment to consider your reaction, doesn't mean you can't. And if your reactions have that much influence on the overall course of your life, it's pretty clear that you possess some sort of will.

What is described here is the LAW of Cause and Effect. Nothing escapes the principle of Cause and Effect, but there are many planes of Causation.

We have free will as we know it, the problem is that many of us can't understand or comprehend the 'cause' in which we are affected by. Therefore we have a limited amount of choices in which we can 'effect' the situation at hand.

The key is to become 'Causers' instead of pawns. As stated, there are many planes of Causation, we must use the laws of the HIGHER to overcome the laws of the LOWER.

Do not fetter your freedom by saying you can't!

We are a culmination of every piece of information that has ever been programmed into our heads since birth and the natural movements of our body.

With that being said, although we have no choice in terms of the programming we didn't ask for since birth or our bodies working separate from us at times (my heart beats whether I will it to or not)...we still have the choice to question these things which can lead us to a clearer understanding of our own personal truth.

I am a rational human being that had a loving mother throughout my childhood which probably has everything to do with who and how I am. It was random and I didn't choose to have that type of mother no more than the child left for eight hours a day in the crib does. I do have the ability to choose to think back to it and understand rationally that my upbringing made me who I am. We have the choice to pursue curiosity, to be imaginative, and to pick things apart.

So we do not have freewill but we have freedom of choice concerning our will?

Is that not freewill? I mean I can understand the reasoning that free will is something by definition, would be a decision with absolutely no outside influence if I'm getting this right?

But then nothing is in existence without outside influence is it?

So in other words if I was in a room with an innumerous amount of objects and I could freely choose one my subconscious would have already made my choice before I'd even looked at the items available?

I can kind of agree with that but what if my conscious decides I'll take no item or all of them, would my subconsciousness already have came up with that idea before I consciously jumped to that said idea? then at the end of the day the weighing up of the options... is that not something I decide to do consciously?

Very thought provoking Op Starred and Flagged

We have the freedom to choose from a limited arrangement of options. The options are provided by a complex balance of intellectual and primal survival dictates, each with its own reason for being part of the mix. Added to that is the brain's ability to compare and contrast each given situation - after having interpreted that situation to the best of its ability - relative to previous experiences that have been represented as fact sets and stored within the brain's residual information "memory cloud", and accurately configure the best available action response based on the entire confluence as it presents itself for immediate rumination. The response is not completely free, as in all possibilities are openly available, but given the precedence that's been established by the specific brain/mind partnership to that point in its development, what else would you expect. Nothing just happens devoid of precedent.

reply to post by Freenrgy2


I decided to put my left sock on only today. That good? Free will and one stinky foot.

reply to post by sulaw

I decided to put my left sock on only today. That good? Free will and one stinky foot.

Better hope you don't put your foot in your mouth...

Geddit?

reply to post by AfterInfinity


Goddit~ I just couldn't help myself... *sigh*

But was that comment from my subconcious? Or my Concious mind? Was that not free will I executed or conditioning of the joker in me? o.O~

Originally posted by TheBandit795
Question: How many decisions do we make each day??? What do you guys think???

edit on 2-5-2013 by TheBandit795 because: (no reason given)

A lot but really, not that much.

I do agree with our perception of free will is off. I take a religious spin on it as there are many allusions this notion of everything being predetermined in the bible. My ability to articulate a logical argument and substantiate it with recent scientific research is nowhere near your level and I thank you for doing so and providing links

Originally posted by TheBandit795
reply to post by sulaw

 

Yes there is still a choice. It's primarily done unconsciously. But take note of what I said earlier. We don't have free will in the way we define free will to be. We make choices, but those choices are almost always made before we are even aware of them.

It's been proven that we all experience conscious awareness as immediate memory - up to 7 seconds in delay. Here's the paper on it - Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain This isn't the same thing as not having the freedom to choose from what's a possible or workable choice. Most people just have no idea that what they experience - all the time - is actually in delay, and at times, even several seconds in delay.

I posted a lengthy essay (8,000 words long) some time back on this subject, and if it's a topic of interest, you can probably find it with a quick post search. It's a survival system that the human brain has developed as a result of the existence of the human mind and sapience. Complicated stuff, but very much necessary for anything that's capable of placing itself within an ongoing linear event trajectory. Without it, instant to instant reality progression would be a nightmare.

PART THREE
LIFE IN CHRIST

SECTION ONE
MAN'S VOCATION LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

CHAPTER ONE
THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

ARTICLE 3
MAN'S FREEDOM

1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. "God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."26


www.vatican.va...

Originally posted by TheBandit795
At least in the way we define free will: The act of consciously making decisions. That doesn't exist in the way we think it to be.

edit on 2-5-2013 by TheBandit795 because: (no reason given)

People have free will. But, they don't use it. It's true, most of our actions are just habit and ritual. Another chunk of it results from influence from others. Everyone wants to control our free will. Sometimes when we think we're acting out of our own free will, like picking up that cigarette to grab a smoke, it's really the response to a subliminally implanted message from some crafty tobacco corporation introduced to our subconscious through crafty advertising, that we're really responding to, an unexplained "urge" to smoke. We feel free, when the urge comes, and everyone says it's bad for you, we say we know, buy we're exercising our free will, and do it anyway.

Somehow, to feel free, man has to be doing something contrary to someone's opinion. That's when we really feel free. You know, the speed limit sign says "Limit 50 mph" and we floor the accelerator and hit "90 mph". That's freedom. It's possible to build cars that can't exceed "50 mph". But, they don't do this, because then people wouldn't "feel free" anymore.

So, the psychological thing about "free will", is that it always must involve some contrary and antagonistic elements in practice.

If there's only one way to do a thing, there's no possibility of free will. There must be more than one alternative, some good and some bad, and our ability to "pick the bad one" is our evidence of free will.

This leads to an interesting situation. If you want people to cross the river. There's a method to achieve this. First, tell them that "freedom" is a good thing, then advise them that they have "free will." Then, finally, tell them it is "bad" to cross the river, and they shouldn't do it.

That's how the tobacco industry gets people to smoke.

I think this is a good introduction/explanation to the freewill/determinism paradox.
Easy laymans terms, it's from the UK's Open University course from the BBC.
Did I have any real choice in posting this?

Worth the look. It's under 8 minutes.
www.youtube.com...