How does it not?
Answer my question first. 
No.
Fine, be that way then. 
I don’t believe all creatures are sentient, therefore I was never inside their bodies, therefore I am not responsible for all sufferings. I am the Builder class, not Animal class. But I care about the animal class, and that is why somethings which are built have to be either refurnished, or destroyed. China has grown out of proportion and has become too sturdy to refutation. It’s getting out of control, and must fall, like Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities of old, before it becomes too powerful and enslaves the rest of the world in it’s dark cloud of despair. A city that tortures animals as a pastime and has the most fascist laws and child slaves, and polluted waters of red cannot be allowed to coexist. It must be severed before its disease is spread any further. The citizens have lost control and need a way out. Beside that they just talk funny.
Free will is simply erroneous to the discussion.
Freewill exists, but like everything else, freewill is relative to a standard: “free from what?”
A will as such can only be a free will and is not observable, not cognoscible , thus not provable or disprovable. So we can agree with Schopenhauer and say that the will is Kant’s “thing as such”.
Human beings have a relatively free will.
free will vs determinism (like most dualistic questions of this nature) is a game I have long stopped playing, since I think the question is fundamentally a trap. I’m interested in degrees, not absolutes. I also nearly committed suicide as result of my pathological attachment to the notion that free will was an utter impossibility, so I think I’ve gone deep enough into the question to have the right to give it up.
We are always some what free and somewhat not free. It’s a matter of degree. For instance, someone who is feeling very at peace, light footed, joyful, confident, etc. is quite free. Someone who is suffering from severe anxiety, depression, and who is also locked up in a prison cell is much less free. So, I measure how free or not free I am based on various conditions, but primarily my psychological/emotional state. If my mind is free of thinking, and therefore, free of psychological time, then I am at my free-ist to experience what is without barriers. In other words, I am most free when I am dwelling in the present moment with the greatest degree of lucidity and harmony, and I am least free when I am caught up in worry/regret based on past/future, and least lucid and at harmony with the present moment.
not talking of the behavior nor if it does exist, which is anyway based on the ability to assess/notice or not
Celine,
If I’m coming at this in an unconventional manner that you had not intended, I’ll understand. Seems simple to notice or not, regarding free will. Their seem to be various levels of internal acceptance versus better judgement leading to disenfrachisement of mind, body, and spirit by the notice-e .
For example, take dreaming, some of my dreams are premonitions(clear memories of having seen the dream event occur). I initially dismissed the premonitions for they were in conflict with my current reality. However, others are more a familiarity of a moment, a deja vu in nature that only feels familiar.
Any recommendations on how to notice more/less and ways to filter or limit the bombardment of incoming information?
Rambling and disconnection…so disappointed in myself right now.
hello there
I dont know whose quote that is: curiosity is the cure to boredom
recommendations? that’s a tough one because not two minds/noticees think alike but there actually is a common knowledge to all cultures that is worth investigating to fix this. Social complexities are the result of it not being noticed/assessed, and causing the disenfranchisement of mind, body, and spirit as you point out. This common knowledge in all culture is the spirituality of mathematics.
I’m not entirely certain why this is such an enduring question, except within the context of something like a Christian god. On the most basic level, it involves the question, “Can we decide what to do?” A separate but related question is, “Can we do what we have decided on?” Clearly, we have limited abilities. But it really seems like we can decide to do some things and then do them. “Some” being the important word. Absent “God”, why is this so problematic?
Causation explains a lot but it doesn’t explain everything. It’s an intuitive formulation, which is not to say that it isn’t accurately descriptive. It’s just overblown, especially by philosophers. In fact, we are being quite “philosophical” (as opposed to scientific) when we talk about causation.
We’re also being necessarily vague. Causation is descriptive, which is all it “needs” to be. But it doesn’t describe everything that we observe. Good philosophy is as descriptive as it can be. That’s a good philosophical effort. “Overdescribing” is bad philosophy.
Nietzsche, as the Common Sense Philosopher, which is essentially what he was, tells us that the will is not part of the “I that speaks”. “I have decided to do this thing and I will do it” is descriptive but not what he meant by “will.”
You have choices to make but that doesn’t mean you have control over your will, in a nutshell. Or, even if your will is “free” you are not “free” of your will.
So, this is jumbled up, vague and philosophically unsatisfying. Tough luck, that is. What philosophers don’t do so well is ask, “Just what is it we are free of if our will is free?” As James states.
As “Along” states, this is a question that cannot be usefully answered unless we think is terms of a spectrum or continuum and not in terms of answers that solve every problem.
What controls my will? Lots of stuff influences it. And nothing does. Organisms that survive very long are adapted to their environment. Will is not different than any other attribute that gets an organism through its life. Except that it’s not an attribute that we can understand as discrete and complete. Nor do we need to. Will is an effect. As is freedom.
You can’t have a concise definition of free will as it is a Metaphysical entity that can not be known beyond the individual.
Think about Kant “Thing in itself” or Noumena, where you can never know beyond one’s own perceptions and beliefs.
Also think A J Ayers’ Logical Positivism where a statement can either be known synthetically or analytically, and any propositional statements, such as a response to anything that you could be looking for in a concise definition of free will, could never be validated beyond the assumption of an individual’s perception on something that is unverifiable.
A" concise definition of free will" could be under the same group of questions as:
A concise definition of beauty. et. al.
Something as loose as “Free Will” as defined from a metaphysical standpoint will always encounter those problems, which is what is most likely assumed when presented under a philosophy heading. Other “Categories” could lead to more specific and accurate ways to define, but would probably present less intriguing answers. Think of what the “Legal” definition of “Free will” might be. Or how about from a religious connotation? Or what is considered to be free will when the individual who is perceiving it defines it.
Could a calculator have free will? I could argue yes or no both ways and never be “proven” wrong. (That is, if my definition stays in the realm of beyond the empirical or the logical")
Faust,
“I’m not entirely certain why this is such an enduring question, except within the context of something like a Christian god. On the most basic level, it involves the question, “Can we decide what to do?” A separate but related question is, “Can we do what we have decided on?” Clearly, we have limited abilities. But it really seems like we can decide to do some things and then do them. “Some” being the important word. Absent “God”, why is this so problematic?”
“Can we decide what to do?”…Can we notice/identify what to do?
“Absent “God”, why is this so problematic?”" I don’t know. Why is the soul of the world dying?
There’s more that needs some addressing, but I’m out of time. To be continue’d…
Goose - I can usually identify what to do. Right now, I’m hungry. Sometimes it’s a problem, but not very often, I think. I don’t think most people live lives of constant confusion. Most people do, indeed, live lives of constant moral confusion, but they don’t seem to notice it very much most of the time.
The soul of the world would be fine if the world had a soul. I have faith in the world. Whatever “the world” is.
free will solely exists as the ability to be aware or not, to notice or not, assess or not.
One never does what one really when this ability is denied. This is the secret of power, making people believe the ball rolls in a another direction while acting on another level.
Ahhh, I remember when I had your line of reasoning, and KNEW it to be true beyond all doubt. It is true that if you are a hardcore materialist there cannot be any good argument for free will. But what is it in you that observes, yet can never be observed? Is that material as well? And can you prove that it is? I certainly am not going to say that “free will” comes from the brain, from matter. No, no, no! It has to come from something that is not matter or it can’t come at all. Again, what in you (or outside of you, or wherever) is observing this existence, but cannot itself be observed? And again, can you prove that the observer is material? Possibly that which observes, the perceiver, is the casual in itself. The “Big Bang”, “God”, or “God within you”. The all seeing eye that cannot be seen. Perhaps THAT is causing the whole material world to do what it does. Perhaps. OR, we are all just slaves to matter permeated by chance/chaos.
Free-will does exist, so does consciousness.
Some people who claim it doesn’t are consciously and/or unconsciously trying to make people more
controllable by promoting its supposed non-existence.
We have free-will, it’s just that we are not free to do anything, not at the moment that is.
Limited autonomy
just like I said Erik… it does surely exist but governed by the ability to notice/assess