The non-existance of free will, and religious ramifications

DO YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE FREE WILL?

  • Of course I do.
  • Nope I don’t.
  • I don’t think all-caps was the way to go on that one man…
0 voters

So get this- There’s these people out there called “Hard Determinists” (actually I’m one of 'em), and they basicly believe that the universe is ‘determined’. That is to say, mathmaticly and physicly goverened in every detail. This means that there’s no such thing as random. Like rolling a die? There’s so much physics involved that happens so fast that humans can’t determine the outcome, so we consider it to be random, but in fact if you knew all of the physics involved you could predict the outcome with absolute certainty. Expand that idea outward and you get an entire universe progressing forward in what hd’s beleive is THE ONLY POSSIBLE WAY THAT THINGS COULD HAPPEN. This idea has a big stumbling block with most people: free will. Basicly it says right off the bat that nobody has any. Ever. We feel as though we have free will, but it is an illusion. Every decision you’ve ever made was influenced by something else or a number of something elses, which made doing that particular thing the only thing that you could have done. Somebody respond to this, it’s screaming for a debate.

Being I don’t really know what I’m talking about I’m going to keep this short. I heard of electrons i think jumping from atoms for no apparent reason. As well as there being a degree of random. I haven’t read much on the degree theory I just know it’s out there. Also I was wondering… Thought has no structure so how can physics prove a way of thinking?

Whether or not the universe is determinate or indeterminate has no bearing on whether or not you have free will. It’s two different vocabularies and they don’t mix. We are influenced all the time but the decision (and the responsibility) are still yours and mine.

Many people believe God gave us Free-will(count me as one). If you’ve read the Bible any, or atleast heard the story of Adam and Eve, you know Eve had the freedom to eat the apple. Same way we have the freedom to believe what ever we want; whether there is a God, that we evolved, that little green men abduct humans on a regular basis, etc, etc, etc. But that doesn’t mean that in some way the whole universe is “determined” to become or change in every way it does. That may well exist. But even so, you can have the free-will to believe in that or not.

Apparent is the stumbling word here. It is the belief of the Hard Determinists that as this (what you mentioned) is a fairly recent discovery in quantum physics, that the fact that no reason can be shown conclusivly for the coordination of movments as of yet, does not mean that there is none. Therefore the phenomenon is, from our standpoint, scientificly unpredictible, but nonetheless not actually random. We believe that as technology progresses, the inner workings of matter will be further understood.

Yea that’s what I figured I would get from you. But it makes you wonder if science can prove everything. Or if there is no such thing as random. I honeslty don’t believe that science can prove everything. I think there will be things beyond our comprehension. I hope anyway. If not then things such as emotions will be proven one way or another to be fact. In which case we won’t be human anymore but robotic and able to determine what’s going on what will go on and what has gone on. Hopefully even if we do prove such things we will still be oblivious to the split second decisions of the physics involved and continue to be ingorant animals. Damn my love for emotions.

Actually it would have great bearing on that issue. According to the HDs, your brain is nothing more than a mystifyingly complex chemical engine running on the same physics as the rest of the world. They would have you believe that although the physics calculations for human thought are so insanly complicated that no computer of this age could ever begin to predict its output, that there are in fact dynamics governing every aspect of it. Every thought and every decision is the direct output of the physical state of the brain and the stimulus. Like the dice, if you knew all of the physics involved, you could predict, with absolute certainty, the outcome.

I’m not going to get into a Bible debate today, but I think it may be safe to take that stand that ‘Just becuase it’s written, doesn’t make it so’.

Any story that is written also portrays the beliefs of the writer. Yes I have read the part about God giving man free will. But I beleive that although the Bible is a respected work, it is also very much a religious (not philosophical) work and one that does not go into details proving things like free will. It is becuase of this that I feel, “becuase the Bible says so” should never be the end-all factor in a philosophical debate.
Even when the debate is about religion.

But it doesn’t matter if you can predict what I do, the only thing that matters in terms of free will is whether I can do what I want to do. How those wants are determined or influenced isn’t important to the exercising of free will, only that you have them. Whether the HD’s are correct or not, doesn’t change the fact that I have desires, it’s simply a different description.

I’m afraid I must disagree. Having wants, desires, this is a description of will, not free will. Hard determinism doesn’t say that humans are without will, it accepts that we have things that we want, and that we make choices and decisions. But it also tells us that our choices are wholy determined. The physics involved are so complicated that we can’t begin to understand it, but they exist. Think about it. There are things that, to you, taste good to eat. And others that, to you, taste bad to eat. You could be said to have the will to eat the first type of food, becuase it is something that you like. But you never got to choose whether or not you liked it. You just did or you didn’t. Hence this will was not freely made. Not free will. This is, of course, an extremely simplistic example, but I was only attempting to illustrate that no one chooses their own desires.

But free will isn’t about how you come to like something, it only comes into play after you already like something. It doesn’t matter how you came to like it. Now, you can be hungry and not eat and that refusal may be wholly determined but it doesn’t take away or alter the choice because the you is still you. If there is a god or a devil in your head telling you what to do but you don’t know, that god or devil just is you and you still have free will because you still have a choice. Let’s say that you find out at some point about this little devil and you can suddenly make a distinction between you and him, this just means you have become a different you and accept or regret your past decisions, but it doesn’t mean you didn’t have free will before, that you’ve finally discovered the real you and now you’re really free.

Have to come back later to finish this.

I believe that what you may be trying to say here is, that although you may be influenced by outside things on any given decision, the choice is still yours to make. (If I am inncorect, please explain further on your next post.)

I think that this issue can be explaind if we examine the popular veiw of free will in society today. It seems that the most popular veiw of free will admits that one’s actions are swayed by outside factors. These factors are most commonly - One’s genetics, one’s previous experiences, and the situation, or stimulus at hand. There is a fourth factor called atomic noise, but we’ll get into that later.

THE CHOICE:
Okay, for something simple, the situation is this: My friend is holding out to me two ice cream cones. One has vanilla ice cream, the other chocolate. Becuase they are melting quickly, I MUST CHOOSE ONE. And becuase I don’t want to make a pig of myself I MUST CHOOSE ONLY ONE. This limits the outcome of the situation to either me choosing chocolate, or vanilla.

THE FACTORS:
These are the things that will sway my choice.

  1. Genetics:
    I could be geneticly predisposed to like chocolate over vanilla, or to pick things on the right instead of the left. Also I might be disposed to like brown things over white things. Realisticly however, genetics don’t often sway a decision one way or the other unless there is a dead heat with all the other factors. If for example I were predisposed to like white things, but I’ve had chocolate ice cream before and like it better that vanilla, then this genetic predisposition would not be much of deciding factor.

2.Previous experiences:
This is a big factor. It incompasses all that we know, and all that has ever happened to us. If I like one flavor over another, that will be a big determining factor in my choice. But since previous experience has many different parts to it, it’s possible that it can be mixed both ways. For example, if I know that I prefer chocolate, it will be a big determining factor. But if I also know that my friend hates vanilla, then I may choose to take vanilla, the flavor that I like less, becuase I want to be a good friend. Keep in mind that having wants and desires is not the same thing as free will. While I may like chocolate better, I did not choose to like it. This itself was determined by either genetics, previous experiences, or atomic noise. Again, more on that later.

  1. The situation, or stimulus, at hand:
    This is closely connected to factor #2, becuase every instant the situation at hand changes, and that which has already happend is added to the previous experiences file. But basicly it says this: Choices won’t be made unless it’s time to make a choice. For example, if I’m at the movies and there’s no ice cream anywhere, I’m not going to turn to my friend and say, “Chocolate please”. It’s only when presented with a situation that harbors a choice that this factor comes into play. It is also used for ‘fine tuning’. For example, if my friend is holding one ice cream cone higher than the other to indicate the one he would like me to take, it is a completely different situation than if he holds them both equally. This factor then is used to determine exactly what the situation is, and exactly what choice has to be made.

  2. Atomic noise:
    These are ‘The Undeterminibles’. To understand it, you must understand the true concept of a ‘random’ thing. The truth is that there is no real random. When we encounter things that we consider to be random, it is really just a case of things being so complex that prediction of their outcome is humanly impossible. For example, when playing roulette, it is humanly impossible to calculate where the ball will land. If, however, one knew the weight of the ball, the height, direction, and velocity of its toss, all areodynamics on the ball and wheel, and the speed, mass, markings and contours of the wheel. If you had ALL that, plus perfect physics calculations, you would be close. But to get the last little bit, the difference between almost certain and absolutly certain, to get that you would have to know the exact number, placement and energy levels of every single atom that could possibly influence the outcome. And if you know much about physics then you know that every single atom in existance influences every other atom if only in the slightest amount. Hence, you would have to be GOD to be able to do the calculations becuase- forget college-level physics, this is deity-level physics. This atomic calculation stuff is just plain impossible for humans to work with, it happens so fast that it all comes out as, well, as noise. Atomic noise. And it influences EVERYTHING. It keeps things slightly ‘random’ becuase nobody can calculate this stuff. Now this isn’t free will, mind you. A step towards random is a step away from free will becuase free will, by definition, is neither determined nor random. But atomic noise does make it immposible to prove Hard determinism. Lucky us.

5.Free will?:
Um, I lied. When I said that these factors sway choices? They determine them. There’s really no room for free will. Sure you can try and shoehorn in a place for it, but if you really examine the other factors that determine a choice, you’ll find that they always win. Once genetics, previous experiences and the current situation battle it out, once they come up with what they want to do, that’s ALWAYS what happens. It’s a very frustrating reality to come to terms with however, which is why so many people refuse to let the idea die.

So what? We learned that God can predict the future with absolute certainty, but most people already believe that. Plus with the little bit about atomic noise, hardcore free will fans still have room to argure, so we’re back to where we started.

Oh well…

Not quite. I didn’t explain it very well but what I’m trying to get at is that the ‘I’ or the ‘you’ can be seen as the result of all those different influences and determining factors (even if you don’t know what they all are), it doesn’t have to be something outside of the universe nor does it have to have a core or a soul, it’s simply the result of all those factors. In this sense, it’s a redescription of exactly what you’re talking about but once redescribed the ‘will’ is taken as a given (what would be an ‘I’ without will?). When you distinguish between will and free will, I think you still imply the possibility of the real you out there somewhere to be found whereas I think it’s easier to see this in terms of different you’s or if that’s too strange, that people change their minds. I don’t consider physicalist explanations of ourselves as contradictiory to the concept of free will, I see them as different descriptions of the same thing. If we take the purely physicalist route, it seems to me that we have to eliminate the ‘I’ altogether and as a consequence the will goes as well. But that seems too much of a sacrifice given that the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ are extremely useful descriptions for what happens, we use them all the time and they aren’t going to go away because somebody runs around saying they are the consequence of unseen forces working to determine what you are. That is, when you say ‘we don’t have free will because we are completely determined by physical processes’, it’s a sentence that makes no sense. It mingles two different but two extremely useful ways of describing things.

As long as you accept that we have desires, I’m not sure we’re that far apart but our main difference seems to be that you want to combine the two descriptions whereas I’m perfectly comfortable leaving them apart.
If we look at the ice cream example, there’s no particular reason I have to choose one or the other, I can walk away or punch you in the face for making me choose (though I don’t think I’d do that :frowning: ) but arguments in this vein always seem, even with the clarification that it’s too complex to decide, to determine what it is that I’ll do regardless of intent. I think you might say that that intent is always already determined and I tend to agree (though I think my argument still includes other possibilities because it doesn’t rely on any particular ontology), but this in no way eliminates intent.

I always considered free will to exist. For example physics may suggest that animals live a certain way. That animals are in a way programmed for survival. Humans have assumed emotions. I can’t see physics proving emotions. Emotions are a source of drive for decision making. Suicide is not in the best interest of most animals or the survival of a race. In some ways suicide (being an extreme example) would be an act against anything explainable.

Another point I’d like to make. Free will can best be discovered in the form of brainwashing and forcing decisions on someone. There have been many cases when someone has been endangered and choosen the danger over the easier outcome. Also if say someone was brainwashed to think a certain way and the situation came up for them to make a decision based on their personal beliefs. Would the brainwash effect take over and the person choose what has been put into their head or would the person choose what they actually thought. In some cases people brought up to believe in something have rejected the idea. But then again it was probably because of some other source of input. Just thought I’d add that I don’t think it applys all that much though.

You said something about the time of decision. Say the time of decision is prolonged and a person given time to “choose”. The factors of times effects on the mind would have to be taken into consideration. In some cases insanity is the cause and I don’t know how well physics can solve insanity.

But say physics do solve emotions. It makes me wonder if there is no stopping science. If it can solve everything predict everything then whats the fun in living?

On a side note… I just realized all my examples are very negative :imp: . I should lay off the pessimism.

I am always amazed that the hard eterminists can be so blind to the beauty that nature has created. In my opinion, of course free will is nothing more than the sum of a bunch of measurable factors, but these factors are so terrifyingly complex that no computer, no metter how powerful will every be able to predict what someone will do 100% of the time. And yet they result in the simple act of me choosing vanilla or chocolate. No matter how hard any scientist tries to say that there’s a law for everything, the basic (and hardline) rule is is that it doesn’t matter one bit. Emotions are just chemicals acting in your brain, but who cares, feel them, they are real, they are there.

I see hard determinists as people who should relly get out more and enjoy the hard and fast rules that they say are out there.

And as for their physics. Very very bad. You try observing the universe at one point and postualting what will happen lster. As far as I understand the physic I know choas theory and the uncertainty principles mean that it’s impossible. Anyway, as time is relative, what exactly would they be measuring this against?

Ouch! You’re pretty hard on the HD’s there, matt. Listen, I’m not blind to nature’s beauty at all. The reason that I’m so interested in HD is becuase I see God in it. If HD is correct, then it means God has put even more work into this creation than we had even imagined. It means that every atom in existance is accounted for, it means that every action that happens has been planned. In short, it’s a scientific reason to believe in fate. A scientific reason to be able to accept evolution and God in the same token. To stop worrying about so much becuase things will happen as they were intended to happen. To stop being afraid. HD can effectivly say, don’t worry anymore. God has a plan for us, and it’s impossible to stray from it. Some people have to go to church to feel God, I feel him every second I’m alive.

Oh, and by the way: Atomic Noise accounts for Chaos Theroy, in fact Chaos Theroy couldn’t exist without it. Nor could Atomic Noise exist without Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal.

I am also a hard determinist. I think that determinism is absoloutly logical, and the discussion on it is not a real discussion, but persuading the non-determinist to belive what is logical.
The hardest argument of the non-determinist is “but what if I don’t WANT to do that”. The thing is that what we want is also determined by the conditions we are in, and we will react in a way that we must react. This is a little hard to belive, because, like Asok_green already said we don’t know everything.
Imagine someone who knows everything and sees everything, but can not change anything. He will certainly know what will happen because he sees everything that happens and knows how everything reacts.
P.S.I’m sorry if I repeated something that someone here has already said, I’m new here and I guess I’m a little lasy to read the whole discussion :slight_smile:

Really? Why in the world would hard determinism absolve you of responsibility? I say worry, worry a lot. Just because God knows what you’ll decide doesn’t mean you don’t have to decide.

Beauty exists in the world whether God exists or not.

Um…becuase they’re incompatable?

“Responsibility”
Response - Ability or the ability to choose one’s own response and be held accountable for it.

If Hard determinism = true,
Then by deffinition, there is no free will

If there is no free will,
Then by deffinition, all of our responses are not free, bound, determined, pre-chosen

No ability to choose one’s own response = No Response - Ability

Hence:

If Hard determinism = true
No Responsibility

That’s a trick I call logic…

Yeah, try it in court sometime. :laughing:

That may sound glib but it’s actually the base of my whole argument. At another site, Michael criticized me for turning this debate into a question of definitions, but I think that’s all we have to do. I do think it’s barking up the wrong tree when we ask, “But do I really have free will?” as if it were something out there separate from us. You want to dissolve the whole identity vocabulary for a more scientific vocabulary – and you want to do that because it makes you feel safe, comfortable, anesthetized, it gives you the freedom from choice rather than the freedom to choose. I don’t think you would say that of course, I think you would probably argue that it’s more real than identity vocabulary.

But it’s not the way we talk and in order to privilege this particular way of talking, you still have to talk which already implies a ‘you’ with desires and needs, priorities and conflicts: it becomes a performative self-contradiction as Habermas might say. Furthermore, it leaves out questions like, “Is this a good thing to do?” “Should I have done it that way?” “Maybe I made a mistake?” “Is there a different way to do this?” “Is there a different way to see this?” and that strikes me as particularly dangerous as any defeatist philosophy ultimately is, it’s a philosophy of quietism.

Now, you might argue that it doesn’t leave out these questions, it only means that if you ask these questions, they were already determined, but if that’s the case, you’ll find yourself right back in the same boat with me, no safety net, no way to really tell what the right decision is, no way you can ever be sure that what you want to do is what you really want to do or if you’ll change your mind tomorrow, no way to be sure if the world really is determined or if you guessed wrong. It is this situation, a situation that holds for every human being (but not for quarks), that gives us what I think is usefully termed free will.

That is, an explanation that explains everything explains nothing.

Your logic trick contains a mistake. Free will and determinism are not incompatible, this is a false opposition. Free will and determinism are no more contradictory than apples are a contradiction of oranges. :laughing:

I’ve debated this point for a few weeks now at this site and and another (and at still another the idea that God’s knowledge of the future does not hinder our freedom – the outcome is irrelevant to the choice) and I just wanted to say that it has helped me see a clearer distinction between free will and freedom. The opposite of freedom is slavery, the opposite of free will is no-consciousness.

Brad