NationStates Jolt Archive

Do you think that humans have free will?
How about animals?

I don't really think people do in a real sense. It's a longish argument, and I should probably go do some work soon, so I'll try to be brief and hope it still makes sense:

If a person has a severe trauma to particular areas in their brain (e.g. medial frontal) it is likely (if he survives) to result in an increase in antisocial behaviour, aggression, loss of impulse control. In short, their personality and behaviour is likely to change in a way that is generally considered to be for the worse.

Lets say (without intending to imply that this is in any way inevitable with brain trauma, I certainly don't want to encourage unthinking prejudice), Joe is a lovely man, who suffers such an injury, and afterwards is found to be much more violent. One day he agressively attacks and kills another man.

Is this joe's fault? Should he be punished? Generally, people would say no.

Ok, another man, Bill, is just a git, always has been, and everyone who knows him thinks he's just an agressive waste of space. He too agressively attacks and kills another man.

Is this Bill's fault? Should he be punished? Generally, people would say yes.

What if brain imaging/post mortem reveals that Bill had suffered brain trauma in childhood, or due to malnutrition, neglect, whatever, his brain had developed in such a way that the medial frontal part of his brain is similarly malformed?

Is his personality/behaviour still his fault?

What if that is extended to less severe brain malformations, what if the argument is extended to brain development (both pre and post birth, i.e. not making any assumptions here about nature v nurture) that is well within normal but simply predisposes the person to anger, stupidity, impulsiveness, loss of empathy, whatever. Does diagnosis of a treatable, or at least, acknowledged illness/disadvantage actually make any moral difference? If a person with an acknowledged brain trauma/learning disability/sever mental illness/whatever, is not considered to be personally responsible, where in the continuum do you draw the line and say at this point, a person's disadvantage is irrelevant?

this is all a bit areligious, i'm agnostic, so my arguments tend not to involve higher powers, and I'm probably somewhat shakey on religious arguments. But even if you assume that there is a god and people have souls, I can't believe that there is free will in the conventionally accepted sense. Leaving aside the god is omnipotent but also good problem, then presumably (please correct me if I'm wrong, and appreciate that this is from a vaguely christian upbringing) the assumption is that a soul is formed/bestowed some point between the moment of conception and birth (inclusively). In that case, I have no choice about what my soul is like, so free will is again in question. There is nothing outside of "me" that gets to choose what "me" is like.

Anyway, I hope some of that makes sense. I'm really interested in other people's views (especially those with reasoned arguments).

cheers.

Read "The User Illusion - cutting consciousness down to size" by Tor Norretranders. I found it very interesting.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140230122/qid=1092744646/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-8633690-7366229

*blinks* like wow... I never thought of it like that...

a) A deterministic world can contain avoiders (e.g. a robot programmed to dodge baseballs or a frog "programmed" to avoid predators)
b) If something is avoidable it is not inevitable
c) Inevitability is thus not the same as determinism
d) People can have free will (of sorts)

The traditional conception of free will is not only absent from humans, it isn't even a coherent concept. People DO make decisions by weighing up the possibilities and judging which is best. You can call that whatever you want, and I want to call it free will.

As for the mentally ill, the libertarian psychiatrist Thomas Szasz has campained for years to have mentally ill people treated the same as "normals" on several grounds. For example, lifelong incarceration in a state medical facility is as bad as or worse than a few years in a state pen. And as he is fond of saying, "living in a state mental asylum is enough to drive anyone crazy".

Also, any softening of the punishment will make mentally ill people more likely to commit crimes than they otherwise would be, same as anyone else. On average, mentally ill people are MORE law abiding than normal people. You might think you're doing them a service by treating them as second class citizens but you aren't.

I think that free will doesn't really exist per say, I mean something deep in the dusty realms of my brain must be aware of what I'm doing and is telling me what to do before I actually consciously think whether or not to do it. and for that reason there is no free will. However if you beleive that free will is conscious thought and decision made voluntarily rather than involutary then a person can have free will, and does indeed decide to do or not do what ever it is he is about to do or not do. :s

aaaarggg!!!! I really shouldn't start things when I've got so much work to do. Oh well...

a) A deterministic world can contain avoiders (e.g. a robot programmed to dodge baseballs or a frog "programmed" to avoid predators)
b) If something is avoidable it is not inevitable
c) Inevitability is thus not the same as determinism
d) People can have free will (of sorts)

I'm not convinced. If you program a robot/frog/person to move 3 feet left at time A, in order to avoid a ball, then once the thing has been programmed then that action in inevitable, given such circumstances. So the ball is avoided but it is inevitably avoided. Did I miss something?


As for the mentally ill, the libertarian psychiatrist Thomas Szasz has campained for years to have mentally ill people treated the same as "normals" on several grounds. For example, lifelong incarceration in a state medical facility is as bad as or worse than a few years in a state pen. And as he is fond of saying, "living in a state mental asylum is enough to drive anyone crazy".

Also, any softening of the punishment will make mentally ill people more likely to commit crimes than they otherwise would be, same as anyone else. On average, mentally ill people are MORE law abiding than normal people. You might think you're doing them a service by treating them as second class citizens but you aren't.

I'll assume you don't mean me in particular when you say "you". It's a tricky one. I'm afraid I don't know much about mental health laws in the USA (assumption from the term state pen) but there has been a lot of controversy recently in Britain about a proposed new mental health bill, which in part would reduce patient right to refuse treatment, and would even (apparently; the actual bill is 150 odd pages long, so I haven't read it in full) allow a person with severe mental health problems to be locked up indefinately, even if they haven't done anything, just because they might be dangerous. Dodgy as hell. On the other hand though I do know people who struggle with schizophrenia, spending most their lives relatively OK but occasionally having psychotic episodes. Sometimes when they talk about how they have acted and thought during those episodes they are not talking about people who are even recognisably them. And to hold them responsible when well for an action that they carried out when ill seems incredibly unfair. I've not read the myth of mental illness (or the user illusion - two more distractions from work, good good), and it sounds interesting. But I would currently refute the idea that putting a person suffering from a psychotic episode in a standard prison is kinder than putting them in a hospital.

much more to say, but maybe tomorrow. Cheers for the replies :)

As for the mentally ill, the libertarian psychiatrist Thomas Szasz has campained for years to have mentally ill people treated the same as "normals" on several grounds. For example, lifelong incarceration in a state medical facility is as bad as or worse than a few years in a state pen. And as he is fond of saying, "living in a state mental asylum is enough to drive anyone crazy".

Also, any softening of the punishment will make mentally ill people more likely to commit crimes than they otherwise would be, same as anyone else. On average, mentally ill people are MORE law abiding than normal people. You might think you're doing them a service by treating them as second class citizens but you aren't.

The mentally ill aren't all kept in state medical facilities. 'Care in the community' may be much-maligned, but in many cases it's preferable. In addition, many mentally ill people cannot be 'treated as normals' because they require drugs to regulate their moods. Of course, there is every possibility that these drugs are actually making things worse. At any rate, the way the mentally ill are treated in the UK is not far short of a disgrace. I'm particularly sickened by the way that sections of the media treat schizophrenics.

Hmm, I feel a rant coming on. Sorry for the hijack.

I'm not convinced. If you program a robot/frog/person to move 3 feet left at time A, in order to avoid a ball, then once the thing has been programmed then that action in inevitable, given such circumstances. So the ball is avoided but it is inevitably avoided. Did I miss something?

Like I said, it's free will "in a sense" and any other conception of free will is incoherent (try to think of one that isn't, don't use the word "spirit"). What if the robot/frog/person is also a concious entity and very complex to the point of writing and ammending its own "programming" to a high degree in response to its experiences? It isn't that "your brain" decides for you because your brain is you.

I think people have free will, it's just that free will isn't everything you thought it was. But what can the "old fashioned" sort of free will do that this kind can't? Is there any reason to prefer the other kind?

At any rate, the way the mentally ill are treated in the UK is not far short of a disgrace. I'm particularly sickened by the way that sections of the media treat schizophrenics.

Hmm, I feel a rant coming on. Sorry for the hijack.

oooh, no, no need to apologise. rant away. I like a good rant. And the whole hijacking thing I never really got. I don't go on these forum things much, so my mindset is that of sitting in a pub (sadly without the beer) and having a random chat with people I've just met. So the conversation can go wherever it wants. :D

Like I said, it's free will "in a sense" and any other conception of free will is incoherent (try to think of one that isn't, don't use the word "spirit"). What if the robot/frog/person is also a concious entity and very complex to the point of writing and ammending its own "programming" to a high degree in response to its experiences? It isn't that "your brain" decides for you because your brain is you.

I think people have free will, it's just that free will isn't everything you thought it was. But what can the "old fashioned" sort of free will do that this kind can't? Is there any reason to prefer the other kind?

I agree that concepts of free will are inherently incoherent, although to be honest I still don't think I've quite grasped your concept yet. Under your version, is it fair to punish crime? My version consists of: there is no free will because all actions are made up of a bunch of chemicals being released/uptaken at synapses, nothing more, and probably noone would argue that chemicals have free will. There is no bigger plan, no cohesion, it just feels as though there is because that turned out to be evolutionarily helpful. Which chemicals are released and when is all inevitable, and dependent upon prior experiences and genetic makeup (all of which are inevitable for the same reasons - unless some neural pruning is genuinely random?). Hence it is (probably) entirely possible (given an immeasurably complex parallel processing system with access to all genetic and environmental information, which presumably could never be made) to predict what any person might do at any moment. Hence everything is predetermined, although that doesn't really matter because everyone feels as though they have free will, and it would be impossible to ever build a system that would work ahead of time to predict things. where was I?

Oh yeah, so given that, it isn't fair to punish a person for what they are inevitably fated to do. Although obviously the punishment of crime constitutes part of the environment and as (as libertovania said earlier) a reduction in punishment would result in an increase in crime, hence criminals have to be punished for the general good. What do you think?

Free will is derived from ones conscience, what one thinks as being an act of free will (say to stop and help a fellow traveler injured in a accident on the side of the road) Do you utilize your free will to help this individual or do you utilize it to continue on down the road to possibly help the one your in route to (if your a police officer)?

On a religous aspect free will is equal to ones conscience also. In the bible it states that God instills free will into man, for man to make up ones own mind. Our society's free will is based upon this description not by choice but by conscience of civilized people. How can you or I say what is best for ourselves will be best for another? We can not in many aspects, but many of us take the lazy route out and go with others that want to limit anothers free will with laws and restrictions. Instead we should be encouraging free thinking and idea's that are not the norm, but not harmful ideas. But ones that obviously have no right or wrong answer, such as medical marijuana or someones right to carry or own a firearm. These are freedoms that are derived from this free will, freedoms that go against popular belief but the individual knows it to be best for them. Free will, it will stand the test of time, because it is the one 'idea' that freedom is actually derived from.

From what I understand, research has shown our brains register activity a split-second after an action (the N100). Therefore if this is true, we're not acting but reacting. Aren't we in fact rationalising our actions after we have committed them? In this case there is no free will as we have no conscious control over anything we do. We merely do, then a nanosecond later realised what we're doing and rationalise it as that's what we wanted to do.
Which brings up the question of what is making our decisions? I think it's the bacteria - did you know there's more bacteria cells in our body than body cells by a considerable factor. What's to stop them from influencing our behaviour?

"From what I understand, research has shown our brains register activity a split-second after an action (the N100). Therefore if this is true, we're not acting but reacting. Aren't we in fact rationalising our actions after we have committed them? In this case there is no free will as we have no conscious control over anything we do. We merely do, then a nanosecond later realised what we're doing and rationalise it as that's what we wanted to do.
Which brings up the question of what is making our decisions? I think it's the bacteria - did you know there's more bacteria cells in our body than body cells by a considerable factor. What's to stop them from influencing our behaviour?"

I think this is a brilliant observation and something to look into. The only thing I must add is that there are some actions that are not brought on through a reaction. Some free will has been improvised with creativity without any outside action. The free will to drive the suv or ride the bus today is up to ones own free will. I have no outside thinking when I just so happen to not feel like driving my gas guzzling (actually gets better gas mileage than most sport cars and trucks) suv, over riding on the local transit in my town. I feel no shame in driving my suv because I know it still gets better gas mileage than the empty bus im going to ride in (conscience), but I still wake up and decide to ride the bus for that day. Free will I think can be best decribed as personal choice, something that everyone should get in everything (you get to decide your own fate, the good road or the bad road, or in the matrix the blue pill or the red pill). Now on the bacteria theory, I have not heard that one yet, but I have read and heard about all the bacteria's our bodies carry and pick up throughout our lifetime. This is something that you should present to a local scientist, one that wouldn't mind utilizing thier free will to look into yours.

seems like you're all getting close to the problem but there are things no-ones brought up yet. For instance rather than going down to a chemical level, how about the quantum level? Every single interaction of each particle with every other particle can be described by mathematics. The only things stopping complete determinism is the fact that there are too many particles to be able to decribe one's body accurately in terms of equations. So if every part of your body merely obeys the pyhsical laws at all times, how can there be free will?

quantum physics pretty much prooves that things arent really determined 100%. In fact we dont know anyhting 100% and never will. Thus we have a variety of choices. We may be inclined due to nature to pick certain choices, and inclined towards nurture towards other choices, but we make a conscious decision in the end.
Saying that we have no free will, is like saying if the big bang happened again it would be exactly the same.
Quantum physics pretty much prooves that if the big bang happened again, it would NOT be exactly the same. Because the big bang was never predetermined to happen, and never was life, and never was any of our actions.
In fact if you really get into quantum physics you get into the multi universe theory, that says we have different quantum universes, that have ever ypossible outcome imaginable, from the nazis winning world war 2, to humans becoming fishes in a cartoon episode of the simpsons.

"So if every part of your body merely obeys the pyhsical laws at all times, how can there be free will? "

There are instances that free will does not obey the physical laws, and in turn makes thier own laws. In the US, we have 9 states that allow medical marijuana, contrary to our federal law that states "marijuana is illegal and has no theruputic uses". These states (the people of these states) have gone against the norm, not to just be disobidient to federal law, but they are acting with thier own free will to ensure thier sick and dying have a more mellow and painless death out of conscience of knowing that only the reciepient has knowledge of how much pain one can stand.

seems like you're all getting close to the problem but there are things no-ones brought up yet. For instance rather than going down to a chemical level, how about the quantum level? Every single interaction of each particle with every other particle can be described by mathematics. The only things stopping complete determinism is the fact that there are too many particles to be able to decribe one's body accurately in terms of equations. So if every part of your body merely obeys the pyhsical laws at all times, how can there be free will?

To read something at the quantum level, you are not reading anything but wavelengths. You can never tell 100% where the wave ever is because its always changing. Which means we will never know 100% where the wave length is in its cycle.
thus in quantum physics there is always a degree of uncertainty that is taken into account. This uncertainty is enough to proove that not everything is 100% controlled.

What about basic personality? The traits that determine who I am (and make me different from Bill, standing on my left) define my thoughts and actions in a specific set of circumstances. The person who I am, if given the choice between an apple and a big piece of cake, would be unable to choose the cake if I'm on a diet at the time.
Let's put it this way: you are presented with the apple vs. cake choice and you choose the cake. Afterwards, when you gain 5 pounds, you wish you had chosen the apple. But you *did* choose the cake; the internal mechanisms inside of you clicked into position and made the decision. What exactly does it mean to say that if placed in that situation again, with no change in any outward factors, that you could have made another choice? That's like a scientist who tries to conduct an experiment with the exact same components and each time expects a different outcome.
But! Here's the tricky part: we all have to act like we have free will. Why? If we live in a deterministic universe, why bother with self-delusion? Well, the person who I am, when put into a situation, might make Decision A if under the impression that choices are determined from personality. Ther person who I am might make a *different* choice if under the impression that people are free to choose.
I didn't really axplain that *very* well ... I'm looking for an old book called "What Does It All Mean?" by Thomas Nagel. It's somewhere in the impossible nightmare of my room, when I finf it I'll be able to quote his article on this subject verbatim.

What about basic personality? The traits that determine who I am (and make me different from Bill, standing on my left) define my thoughts and actions in a specific set of circumstances. The person who I am, if given the choice between an apple and a big piece of cake, would be unable to choose the cake if I'm on a diet at the time.
Let's put it this way: you are presented with the apple vs. cake choice and you choose the cake. Afterwards, when you gain 5 pounds, you wish you had chosen the apple. But you *did* choose the cake; the internal mechanisms inside of you clicked into position and made the decision. What exactly does it mean to say that if placed in that situation again, with no change in any outward factors, that you could have made another choice? That's like a scientist who tries to conduct an experiment with the exact same components and each time expects a different outcome.
But! Here's the tricky part: we all have to act like we have free will. Why? If we live in a deterministic universe, why bother with self-delusion? Well, the person who I am, when put into a situation, might make Decision A if under the impression that choices are determined from personality. Ther person who I am might make a *different* choice if under the impression that people are free to choose.
I didn't really axplain that *very* well ... I'm looking for an old book called "What Does It All Mean?" by Thomas Nagel. It's somewhere in the impossible nightmare of my room, when I finf it I'll be able to quote his article on this subject verbatim.

well, you cant make an experiment on a volatile thing and expect the same reaction twice.
People are volatile thus our emotions are always changing and so are our motives, attitudes, etc.... we are a quantum gun shooting off random things.

Saying you cant change what already happened, as prooving determinism is completely backwards.
Prooving determinism involves predicting the next step because its already determined.
In quantum mechanics we will never be able to predict the next step,( where the wavelength will be in a second) because it can be anything, thus prooving that not everything is already determined.

To read something at the quantum level, you are not reading anything but wavelengths. You can never tell 100% where the wave ever is because its always changing. Which means we will never know 100% where the wave length is in its cycle.
thus in quantum physics there is always a degree of uncertainty that is taken into account. This uncertainty is enough to proove that not everything is 100% controlled.


That's correct. It is impossible to specify an electron's exact location. To make matters more complex, don't forget Wolfgang Pauli's Law of Complementary (possible spelling error). It basically says that merely observing a system can/will change its outcome. It's essentially a formal and specific form of chaos theory, which states that any action, no matter how slight or insignificant, can impact any other event or object. So to summarize, the universe is unpredictable on every fundamental level we have examined so far.

well, you cant make an experiment on a volatile thing and expect the same reaction twice.
People are volatile thus our emotions are always changing and so are our motives, attitudes, etc.... we are a quantum gun shooting off random things.

Saying you cant change what already happened, as prooving determinism is completely backwards.
Prooving determinism involves predicting the next step because its already determined.
In quantum mechanics we will never be able to predict the next step,( where the wavelength will be in a second) because it can be anything, thus prooving that not everything is already determined.

But people *aren't* random. We react in a logical, coherant way to outside stimuli. If I poke you with a pin, you get angry. People aren't just a seething mass of emotions and chemicals that are set outside the laws of action and reaction; our current thoughts and feelings are based on our previous ones, and our future thoughts and feelings are based on the ones we're having now.
This is not to say that it's all nurture, no nature. It seems pretty clear that genetics *does* have a role to play; if you have *this* personality you'll react *this* way to an experience and gain *this* new insight, which will affect you to make *this* decision in the future. If you have *that* personality you'll react *that* way to an experience and gain *that* new insight, which will affect you to make *that* decision in the future.

That's correct. It is impossible to specify an electron's exact location. To make matters more complex, don't forget Wolfgang Pauli's Law of Complementary (possible spelling error). It basically says that merely observing a system can/will change its outcome. It's essentially a formal and specific form of chaos theory, which states that any action, no matter how slight or insignificant, can impact any other event or object. So to summarize, the universe is unpredictable on every fundamental level we have examined so far.

We can't get careless here, specifying an electrons exact position shouldn't be a logical impossibility, it is our current lack of ability that prevents doing so. Also, simply observing a system will not cause a disruption, it is the events that would accompany and observation that can have an effect. It may be possible to observe without interfering, say (in the crazy ghost chaser sense) from the realm of the mental, experiencing without physically being. I could be talking a whole lot of guam! I am a bit of an eegit.

But people *aren't* random. We react in a logical, coherant way to outside stimuli. If I poke you with a pin, you get angry. People aren't just a seething mass of emotions and chemicals that are set outside the laws of action and reaction; our current thoughts and feelings are based on our previous ones, and our future thoughts and feelings are based on the ones we're having now.
This is not to say that it's all nurture, no nature. It seems pretty clear that genetics *does* have a role to play; if you have *this* personality you'll react *this* way to an experience and gain *this* new insight, which will affect you to make *this* decision in the future. If you have *that* personality you'll react *that* way to an experience and gain *that* new insight, which will affect you to make *that* decision in the future.

But you dont always make the decision you should have made because of some random emotion you were possibly feeling at the time you made the choice.
People arent 100% random that i give you, but you can never predict a persons next choice with 100% certainty, because they may do something you dont expect.
People are not 100% logical either. As much as we wish we were were not.
Our unconscious reactions may work logically, but we have a conscious mind which may succumb us to illogical desires.
Example, when rats are administered cocaine, they would rather take more cocaine, then eat. This is not logical to the survival of the species, thus irregular behaviour shown by the animal.
Just because everytime you give the rat coke, doesnt proove that everything is already determined. What this prooves is that the drives that normally determine the rats behaviour can be altered in a systematic way to not benefit the rat.Thus the rat is now doing something it never would have thought possible. Which is to not further its own survival.
People in the end choose whether to further their survival or not. They choose to become addicts, they choose to not stop. They may have had forces pushing them in those directions( genes, parents) but these things alone do not determine a persons future. In the end it is the person who makes the choices.

Everytime you poke me with a pin i wont get mad, but maybe 2 or 3 times into it i might.

the only thing determined there is the fact that yeah ill get mad, but who kno's when itll happen. Thus prooving that not everything is determined.

But people *aren't* random. We react in a logical, coherant way to outside stimuli. If I poke you with a pin, you get angry. People aren't just a seething mass of emotions and chemicals that are set outside the laws of action and reaction; our current thoughts and feelings are based on our previous ones, and our future thoughts and feelings are based on the ones we're having now.
This is not to say that it's all nurture, no nature. It seems pretty clear that genetics *does* have a role to play; if you have *this* personality you'll react *this* way to an experience and gain *this* new insight, which will affect you to make *this* decision in the future. If you have *that* personality you'll react *that* way to an experience and gain *that* new insight, which will affect you to make *that* decision in the future.

Although you haven't actually said anything untrue, I feel you're making the human mind sound more simple than it is. Yes, I feel pain and I feel full when I eat food. But I still act in ways that are absolutely illogical at times. The fact that my present emotions are partially based on past experience only complicates the issue. People are capable of absolutely anything at any time.

And on a personal note, I agree that nature has a HUGE role to play. It's just a little harder to see when compared with nurture. I haven't yet met a fellow Irishman who couldn't survive entirely on potatoes and beer. :D

We can't get careless here, specifying an electrons exact position shouldn't be a logical impossibility, it is our current lack of ability that prevents doing so. Also, simply observing a system will not cause a disruption, it is the events that would accompany and observation that can have an effect. It may be possible to observe without interfering, say (in the crazy ghost chaser sense) from the realm of the mental, experiencing without physically being. I could be talking a whole lot of guam! I am a bit of an eegit.

When you observe you change the quantum mechanics of the thing being observed, because everything is quantumly related and attached.
Thus observation in itself is interference
(you shure feel like someones interfering when your in bed with that girl and sum weird guy is watching)

We can't get careless here, specifying an electrons exact position shouldn't be a logical impossibility, it is our current lack of ability that prevents doing so. Also, simply observing a system will not cause a disruption, it is the events that would accompany and observation that can have an effect. It may be possible to observe without interfering, say (in the crazy ghost chaser sense) from the realm of the mental, experiencing without physically being. I could be talking a whole lot of guam! I am a bit of an eegit.

You're correct. It SHOULDN'T be impossible, but it is. It has never been done. As an unproven theory, you can't use electron mapping to state that the universe is predictable. You need to establish one theory before you can base other theories upon it.

When you observe you change the quantum mechanics of the thing being observed, because everything is quantumly related and attached.
Thus observation in itself is interference
(you shure feel like someones interfering when your in bed with that girl and sum weird guy is watching)

Exactly. Thank you.

When you observe you change the quantum mechanics of the thing being observed, because everything is quantumly related and attached.
Thus observation in itself is interference
(you shure feel like someones interfering when your in bed with that girl and sum weird guy is watching)

I suppose thats a good point, but in that analogy the interference is dependant on my ability to sense the creepy pervert. How does this work at a quantum level? And does it deny the possibilty of a non-physical observation?

Anyone know how to do a smiley stroking a big beard in a knowledgable manner? ...(long shot)...

surely as we evoled into humans are devloped evermore complex devices for manipulating the enviroment around us, we must presumly have developed more complex ways of interprating that same enviroment.

also as we became more social as we could do, now we saw the world in a different more intricate light, we would also need to mentalise (that is put oneself in anothers shoes) and develope a concept of "the other" surely this concecpt as it developed and with inherent fallacys it must of had and still does, as i have no clue how other people see the world. then the inconsistency between ones mentalised concept of an others likely actions and thier actual actions could have given rise to a need of this bizarre concept of free will in order to explain subjectively irrational behaviour when in reality it was probably differnetly stimilae stimulating diferent shit in different ways.

im in absolutely no way any form of academic and no little only what i gather from semi-drunk conversations in pubs, so apolgies for any ignorance.

I suppose thats a good point, but in that analogy the interference is dependant on my ability to sense the creepy pervert. How does this work at a quantum level? And does it deny the possibilty of a non-physical observation?

Anyone know how to do a smiley stroking a big beard in a knowledgable manner? ...(long shot)...


well by you sensing the pervert you are indoubtedly linked to the change in your environment by him being present, which leads you to become uncomfortable if you dont like that sorta thing ,or comfie if u do

particles are muhc the same way only because they are undoubtedly linked to their environemtn, because their enviornment is nothing more then quantum particles. so if one of these quantum particles change, to allow an observation, they all must change.

now as far as allowing a nonphysical observation. its impossible, because we would need to change something quantum in the environment of whats being observed, in order for us to ever observe that one thing. Example for us to observe a dog, we have to be present looking at him, or he has to be on tv. now when that dog was on tv he was observed by at most a camera.this camera changed the quanum structure of everything around it, thus changing the dog itself( after all the dog did see you and now has an added memory )

Just ot make more light of this:
if you had a hidden camera in a room, and sumone went into that room and murdered his wife, theres no saying that he wouldnt have done it had the camera not been there, but theres nothing saying that by putting the camera into the room, certain chaotic things happened which lead to the man eventually killing his wife.( altho more then likely not). All this changes is the fact that now the man is caught on camera killing his wife, where he can be caught and persecuted. So to an extent your right all observance does is brings forth all the events that come with an object being observed, Since these events are tied 100% to observance, this prooves that observance is interference.

I can definately appreciate that even if i was watching the dog through my uber telescope on the moon, the chain reaction of disruption would effect the dog, although only in an undetectable way to myself. But what if an out of body experience were possible. Or from a religious view, Gods observation of the dog must be non-interfering. Im sure he can observe the dog being omnipresent. But i understand that God isn't physical. Correct me if im wrong of course, its just an assumption.

I can definately appreciate that even if i was watching the dog through my uber telescope on the moon, the chain reaction of disruption would effect the dog, although only in an undetectable way to myself. But what if an out of body experience were possible. Or from a religious view, Gods observation of the dog must be non-interfering. Im sure he can observe the dog being omnipresent. But i understand that God isn't physical. Correct me if im wrong of course, its just an assumption.

Yes but the knowledge that God is watching or could be watching is enough to change behavior, at least in humans. Kinda like how kids will behave better if they think Santa is watching them.

okay quantum kids.
i heard there was a qautum experiment with a box a some perishable thing in it like a mouse and that the experiment was that when you open the box the mouse changed i think the name may have had a pandoras box spin on it.
anyway from what you say the quantum chain would surly effect the box and carry on through to the rat. therfore tif the experiment change both the subject and the appartus how do we make quantum torpedos

The dog can't know of God, and if its wild it doesn't necessarily have a master or any stand in for the position of superior being. Thus the event of God observing the dog can't effect it. But that is assuming that belief in a superior being is in no way an innate idea. Maybe if the dog was really confident.....

The dog can't know of God, and if its wild it doesn't necessarily have a master or any stand in for the position of superior being. Thus the event of God observing the dog can't effect it. But that is assuming that belief in a superior being is in no way an innate idea. Maybe if the dog was really confident.....

you cant know of the dogs kwonledge of god.

however is not the dogs knowledge irrelavant as the atoms that have been indirectly effected by god are whats effecting the dog not it awarenesss of god.

you cant know of the dogs kwonledge of god.

however is not the dogs knowledge irrelavant as the atoms that have been indirectly effected by god are whats effecting the dog not it awarenesss of god.

Maybe im just not seeing the obvious here, but how is it that the atoms or anything on a quantum scale are aware of God? or in any way thus effected.

I can definately appreciate that even if i was watching the dog through my uber telescope on the moon, the chain reaction of disruption would effect the dog, although only in an undetectable way to myself. But what if an out of body experience were possible. Or from a religious view, Gods observation of the dog must be non-interfering. Im sure he can observe the dog being omnipresent. But i understand that God isn't physical. Correct me if im wrong of course, its just an assumption.

well bringing it to the realm of god is bringing it way into that uncertainty realm.
but let me see if i can say this right:

since we cannot be god, and be omnipresent to observe something, we would always (as humans) effect whatever it was we observed within the normal rules and laws of our universe.

Once we have left our bodies we have left all the rules that encompass humanity, and this universe.
We enter ( put in your death philosphy )

IF there was a god, he would have made our laws, thus being able to view and not interfere with us, only because he would know how to do it, because he made the universe.

But since we can never be god it is of no use to find out whether god ( this person we arent even sure exisits) would be able to get around all of our laws of physics, because even though he would, we still wouldnt be able too.

But one question that comes to mind. If god is so powerful, could he ever make a rock so large he couldnt lift it?

On this thought, maybe god is under all of our quantum laws, and does cause interference by observance.

But then again, no one will ever know that one.

you cant know of the dogs kwonledge of god.

however is not the dogs knowledge irrelavant as the atoms that have been indirectly effected by god are whats effecting the dog not it awarenesss of god.


the fact that anyoen would gain an awareness of soemthing is just to show that something is changing through observance on a very simple simple simple scale.
but the fact that all atoms are joined and attached possibly thru little intertwiningin vibrating strings that give way to quantum particles, which give ways to atoms, elements, and physical universe, prooves that everything is tied in together and that there is no one event that can be done the same twice because not everything will always be in the same position in the quantum world, two times in a row. these things happen because of moving particles, observation, anything at all.

Just because one theory may be irrelevant to one argument, does not mean we should ignore it indefinately. God is an uncertainty and i for one am not a believer so i would not agree with my previous arguments but they do show a possible logical exception. Thus i wonder why i made the point...

I did so of my own free will! titter. But then maybe God made me do it to advertise himself a little.

Just because one theory may be irrelevant to one argument, does not mean we should ignore it indefinately. God is an uncertainty and i for one am not a believer so i would not agree with my previous arguments but they do show a possible logical exception. Thus i wonder why i made the point...

I did so of my own free will! titter. But then maybe God made me do it to advertise himself a little.

well brigning god into the equation to disproove an arguemnt is like saying

i really saw it happen!

the truth is theres always two sides to an argument no matter what it is. Thus furthering the fact that theres a choice to take one side or the other. And a person chooses which side to take. Uncertainty shows us that we can make these choices. Because you are uncertain of gods existence lets you know that theres a possibility that he may have influenced your choice. And maybe somewhere in sum quantum universe, you are correct.

Found it. In the words of the immortal Nagel:
"For if it were really determined in advance that you would choose cake, how could it also be true that you could also have chosen fruit? It would be true that nothing would have prevented you from having an apple if you had chosen it instead of the cake, but these 'ifs' are not the same as saying that you could have chosen it, period. You couldn't have chosen it unless the possibility remained open until you closed it off by choosing cake.
"Some people have thought that it is never possible for us to do anything different from what we actually do, in this absolute sense. They acknowledge that what we do depends on our choices, decisions, and wants, and that we make different choices in different circumstances: we're not like the earth rotating around its axis with monotonous regularity. But the claim is that, in each case, the circumstances that exist before we act determine our actions and make them inevitable. The sum total of a person's experiences, desires and knowledge, his hereditary constitution, the social circumstances and the nature of the choice facing him, together with other factors that we may not even know about, all combine to make a particular action in these circumstances inevitable.
"This view is called determinism. The idea is not that we can know all the laws of the universe and use them to predict what will happen. First, we can't know all the complex circumstances that affect a human choice. Secondly, even when we do learn something and use it to make a prediction, that in itself changes the circumstances, which may change the predicted result.
...
"If that is true, then even when you were making up your mind about dessert, it was already determined by the many factors working on you and in you that you would choose cake. You couldn't have chosen the apple, even though you thought you could: the process of decision is just the working out of the determined result inside of your mind.
...
"No, you believe something more. You believe that you determined what you would do, by doing it. It wasn't determined in advance, but it didn't just happen, either. You did it, and you could have done the opposite. But what does that mean? The problem is, if the act wasn't determined in advance, by your desires, beliefs, and personality, among other things, it seems to be something that just happened, without explanation. And in that case, how is it your doing? And how can *I* determine it if nothing *about* me determines it?"

the Nagel quote is great, Cobwebland. nice one for tackling your room and finding it!

You've now inspired me to use other people's words instead of mine (or am I just not up to coherent argument today?!)

First off, Einstein: "If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was travelling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will."

okay quantum kids.
i heard there was a qautum experiment with a box a some perishable thing in it like a mouse and that the experiment was that when you open the box the mouse changed i think the name may have had a pandoras box spin on it.
anyway from what you say the quantum chain would surly effect the box and carry on through to the rat. therfore tif the experiment change both the subject and the appartus how do we make quantum torpedos

Yeah, I think what you're referring to is Schrodinger's cat. With blatant laziness I'm quoting from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci341236,00.html

Schrodinger's cat is a famous illustration of the principle in quantum theory of superposition, proposed by Erwin Schrodinger in 1935. Schrodinger's cat serves to demonstrate the apparent conflict between what quantum theory tells us is true about the nature and behavior of matter on the microscopic level and what we observe to be true about the nature and behavior of matter on the macroscopic level.
First, we have a living cat and place it in a thick lead box. At this stage, there is no question that the cat is alive. We then throw in a vial of cyanide and seal the box. We do not know if the cat is alive or if it has broken the cyanide capsule and died. Since we do not know, the cat is both dead and alive, according to quantum law, in a superposition of states. It is only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive).

We know that superposition actually occurs at the subatomic level, because there are observable effects of interference, in which a single particle is demonstrated to be in multiple locations simultaneously. What that fact implies about the nature of reality on the observable level (cats, for example, as opposed to electrons) is one of the stickiest areas of quantum physics. Schrodinger himself said, later in life, that he wished he had never met that cat.

From what I understand, research has shown our brains register activity a split-second after an action (the N100). Therefore if this is true, we're not acting but reacting. Aren't we in fact rationalising our actions after we have committed them? In this case there is no free will as we have no conscious control over anything we do. We merely do, then a nanosecond later realised what we're doing and rationalise it as that's what we wanted to do.

I think the original study was done by Benjamin Libet in 1983, and he found that the brain prepared for action a third of a second before the person was subjectively aware of an intention to act. More recently, there was an interesting paper by Patrick Haggard in Nature: Neuroscience, in 2002, called "Voluntary action and conscious awareness". I hope I'm not infringing too many copyright laws by pasting the abstract: Humans have the conscious experience of 'free will': we feel we can generate our actions, and thus affect our environment. Here we used the perceived time of intentional actions and of their sensory consequences as a means to study consciousness of action. These perceived times were attracted together in conscious awareness, so that subjects perceived voluntary movements as occurring later and their sensory consequences as occurring earlier than they actually did. Comparable involuntary movements caused by magnetic brain stimulation reversed this attraction effect. We conclude that the CNS applies a specific neural mechanism to produce intentional binding of actions and their effects in conscious awareness. I don't know how many people would have access to the full article, but I guess it'd be taking the piss a little if I copied the whole thing! There are a whole load more abstracts here:http://www.imprint.co.uk/books/volitional_brain.html There was also an interesting paper by Daniel Wegner in Trends in Cognitive Science last year, called "The mind's best trick: how we experience conscious will". There is a link to it on his webpage: http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/pubs.htm , although I don't know whether there is public access to the articles (I'm using a university network).

Oops, this was meant to be quick. I've not even had tea yet this morning! :D

seems like you're all getting close to the problem but there are things no-ones brought up yet. For instance rather than going down to a chemical level, how about the quantum level? Every single interaction of each particle with every other particle can be described by mathematics. The only things stopping complete determinism is the fact that there are too many particles to be able to decribe one's body accurately in terms of equations. So if every part of your body merely obeys the pyhsical laws at all times, how can there be free will?
See my post on page one.

Quantum physics is irrelevant to whether or not there is free will. Does it matter if physics is random or determined? Either way it isn't YOU who controls the particles, except in the sense I meant on page one.

Surely combining these two ideas, you can be unaware of your preference for cake or fruit until the options are presented to you. You then make a decision - akin to opening the box - and discover which dessert it is that has been chosen.

Of course in most cases your chocolate fetish, or your diet will mean that looking in the box is uneccessary.......

Exactly. Your chocolate fetish has made the choice inevitable - you like cake more that fruit, you're not on a diet, you have a fast metabolism and don't care about your weight, whatever - these factors influence your choice.

Your chocolate fetish has made the choice inevitable

Only if you have one. If you are not strongly disposed to either course of action then it is schrodinger's box/free will that is the root of your decision.

There is a difference between saying something is determined and saying that determinism is right. The answer to this question lies in the definitions of "free will" and "determinism". Determinists usually claim that any decision you may make was "determined" by - essentially - external sources; they do not claim that there isn't choice in the first place, merely that it is not a free choice. But I disagree, free will and determinism are compatable because the actual choice isn't determined by external sources, it is formed due to external sources.

Let me offer a crude scenario - scenarios are the death of argument but the light of understanding - if someone throws a rock at you, you don't move because the rock has been thrown, you move because you think it will hurt you if it hits you. In the same way the choice was formed because of external sources but the decision was internal; whether or not the experience necessary to make the decision came from external sources is irrelevant.

oooh, no, no need to apologise. rant away. I like a good rant. And the whole hijacking thing I never really got. I don't go on these forum things much, so my mindset is that of sitting in a pub (sadly without the beer) and having a random chat with people I've just met. So the conversation can go wherever it wants. :D



I agree that concepts of free will are inherently incoherent, although to be honest I still don't think I've quite grasped your concept yet. Under your version, is it fair to punish crime? My version consists of: there is no free will because all actions are made up of a bunch of chemicals being released/uptaken at synapses, nothing more, and probably noone would argue that chemicals have free will. There is no bigger plan, no cohesion, it just feels as though there is because that turned out to be evolutionarily helpful. Which chemicals are released and when is all inevitable, and dependent upon prior experiences and genetic makeup (all of which are inevitable for the same reasons - unless some neural pruning is genuinely random?). Hence it is (probably) entirely possible (given an immeasurably complex parallel processing system with access to all genetic and environmental information, which presumably could never be made) to predict what any person might do at any moment. Hence everything is predetermined, although that doesn't really matter because everyone feels as though they have free will, and it would be impossible to ever build a system that would work ahead of time to predict things. where was I?

Oh yeah, so given that, it isn't fair to punish a person for what they are inevitably fated to do. Although obviously the punishment of crime constitutes part of the environment and as (as libertovania said earlier) a reduction in punishment would result in an increase in crime, hence criminals have to be punished for the general good. What do you think?


Strangely enough you have created a idea that explains how Heavenly Father could be all knowing:

entirely possible (given an immeasurably complex parallel processing system with access to all genetic and environmental information, which presumably could never be made) to predict what any person might do at any moment.

But I just thought I'd point that out.

I agree that people still *make choices*, I'm just saying that those choices are dependent on the person maing them and on the situation, thus not making them entirely "free."
As for the punishment issue ... that one's touchy. I personally can't see how it's fair to punish someone for something they can't not do, even if they did choose to do it. However, by punishing or rewarding someone for their actions, you're encouraging them to repeat/not repeat that action and thus making it more/less likely that such an action will occur in the future. Maybe it's like dog-training: you don't really think the dog is evil and malicious for chewing on your slippers, but you punish them anyway in the vain hope that it will keep them from doing it again.
Or compare it to the way the insane are treated in our penal system (um, sometimes). Even though it's undeniable they chose to do whatever it is they did, we acknowledge that they didn't do so of their own free will, because their mental condition influenced their choice.
The criminally insane are often given counselling instead of the same prison as other offenders. But is it fair to "counsel" anyone who breaks the law? That comes suspiciously close to social reprogramming. But it's not fair, either, to punish people for following a course of action their personalities forced them into - after all, no one can control who they are.
It's kind of a problem with no answer.

I agree that people still *make choices*, I'm just saying that those choices are dependent on the person maing them and on the situation, thus not making them entirely "free."
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you didn't read your post through; but I was under the impression that if we were to have free will it would very well depend on the person, and the choice would very well depend on the person's reaction to a situation.


As for the punishment issue ... that one's touchy. I personally can't see how it's fair to punish someone for something they can't not do, even if they did choose to do it. However, by punishing or rewarding someone for their actions, you're encouraging them to repeat/not repeat that action and thus making it more/less likely that such an action will occur in the future. [...]That comes suspiciously close to social reprogramming. But it's not fair, either, to punish people for following a course of action their personalities forced them into - after all, no one can control who they are.
It's kind of a problem with no answer.
It's dangerous, and often misleading, to mix different philosophical disciplines when answering a question which requires principles from only one discipline. The question of ethics should deal only with the outcome of this problem, and anyway I am largely skeptical of ethics.

Free will must exist for life to be worth living and for morality to exist in my view. That doesn't mean it exists, but I'd prefer to believe it does as otherwise, I wouldn't bother living.

Free will must exist for life to be worth living and for morality to exist in my view. That doesn't mean it exists, but I'd prefer to believe it does as otherwise, I wouldn't bother living.
There are various contradictions in your statements, but I will move past them and ask you directly: what is your basis for morality? what theory of ethics do you subscribe to? what is worth?

Here is an article about why so called mental illness is not a legitimate reason to treat people differently either by locking up innocents or pandering to the guilty.

http://reason.com/0007/fe.js.curing.shtml

Someone wrote:>

"There are various contradictions in your statements, but I will move past them and ask you directly: what is your basis for morality? what theory of ethics do you subscribe to? what is worth?"

The deal with her statement is not left for you or I to debate because that is how she believes, regardless of any science or another persons belief system she has a right to live for whatever reason she so chooses.

I think what she is trying to say is that free-will is =to freedom and is the basis of living, if you can not live for yourself or whoever and whatever you choose to live for, then she says that there is nothing left for her to live for. Not an arguable item, because its her belief and it does not have to carry on any further than that. She is not pressing this belief on you or I, its just the basis of how she lives her life and thinks. Now whatever you say is your "reason for living" is just as justifiable as the next reason someone throws out, because it is your free will to do so. :)

The deal with her statement is not left for you or I to debate because that is how she believes, regardless of any science or another persons belief system she has a right to live for whatever reason she so chooses.
She has a right to life, that is all that needs to be said. This doesn't mean I can't debate her reasons for living; she doesn't have a right for me not to question her reasons for living - or her beliefs for that matter.


I think what she is trying to say is that free-will is =to freedom and is the basis of living, if you can not live for yourself or whoever and whatever you choose to live for, then she says that there is nothing left for her to live for. Not an arguable item, because its her belief and it does not have to carry on any further than that. She is not pressing this belief on you or I, its just the basis of how she lives her life and thinks. Now whatever you say is your "reason for living" is just as justifiable as the next reason someone throws out, because it is your free will to do so. :)
What on earth do you mean by the "basis for living"?

Of course it is arguable, the only beliefs that are not arguable are the ones that stem past reason. Furthermore, it is not a "reason" for living if it cannot be argued for or against.

That is most defiently your perogative, I was only trying to do what you were doing (trying to understand her reasoning) that is why I was speaking as though I was her. I personally don't care one way or another what yours or hers or mine or anyone elses reason to live is, because there is no universal answer. We all strive to live for our own reasons, I love it don't you?

There are various contradictions in your statements, but I will move past them and ask you directly: what is your basis for morality? what theory of ethics do you subscribe to? what is worth?

I subscribe to my own theory of ethics that holds that actions motivated by kindness or love are good and actions motivated by hate are bad. It is pointless to judge someone's actions if they didn't have any choice in whether they are done.

I also simply can't enjoy things that I didn't choose to do. I went to a vacation in California recently, but because I was forced, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I could have.

If our life and choices are predetermined, we have no responsibility. There is no use punishing crime, the misdeed was inevitable. Contracts are useless; if a party to the contract is doomed to break it, it will be broken, so why bother. No promises can be binding; there is no use for marriage. We may as well draw lots as vote in an election.

Here's a good piece from the Scottish baHai newsletter:

The Power of Belief from Ken Carew
When I was in my twenties I studied various subjects which interested me as part of an Open University degree. One of these subjects was philosophy. I remember (an event of perhaps 30 years ago now, although there is no sense of time in memory) going to a summer school at some university in the midlands and attending a lecture on 'Determinism'. This is a theory that the universe is essentially a clockwork machine and all its parts (including us) perform actions which are essentially predetermined by what had gone before. The idea of free will is regarded as an illusion as our actions are determined by the physical state of the atoms, etc. within our bodies including of course the state of the neurons within our brains.
Variations on this theme include the sociological arguments that genetics and environment wholly determine human behaviour, again no free will in any real sense. This brings up the interesting side issue that in religious writings free will is granted to man only for the pure believer to give it up and submit to the will of God.
From the physical point of view the clockwork universe concept has been replaced by quantum mechanics which asserts that on the ultimately tiny physical level it is impossible by definition to determine events exactly (and also that measuring events changes them) thus for example it is inherently impossible to determine when a particular unstable atom of say Plutonium will decay or undergo fission and spontaneously rearrange itself into a different atomic and particle arrangement. Statistics are applied to large quantities of such atoms to predict macroscopic or 'real world' behaviour such as sustaining a controlled fission reaction inside a reactor core. Incidentally from the atomic standpoint we are huge beings, composed of millions of millions of cells each one of which is composed of millions of molecules. For those mathematically inclined, 1015 brain cells for example.
To return to my theme of the power of belief. I attended this lecture on determinism and found that I had accepted it. I sat on the grass outside the lecture theatre and gloomily, despondently, viewed my personal future which I saw as mapped out before me without my free will having any real existence, nothing I could say or do would change it. However, I then had one of those rare flashes of insight – I realised that my (temporary) acceptance of this philosophy had changed my behaviour, that belief changes the way that we act. This seemed to me to empirically prove that determinism was wrong because I held that it was within my power to accept or reject this belief and so to change my future actions. The rejection of this belief lifted my gloom and changed my actions, disproving determinism (This might lead one to the topic of predestination but that is perhaps another matter).
I have pondered the assertion that being a Bahá'í confers protection. What type of protection? Are Bahá'ís not as subject to the whims of chance as others and are we not actually subjected to more hardships and threats because of our beliefs? I return to my experience after that lecture of long ago. Belief changes your actions. Our youth are exposed to suggestions of immorality of all kinds – take drugs, have sex without license, steal, cheat and lie. How can we protect them? As a youth one views the world differently to an adult, an adult has the experience through the mere passage of time and events to understand that the concept of 'ruining your life' or 'taking away your future' is a real one. A youth does not have any such concept, the future is a vague thing, the world is now.
Belief changes your actions. If a youth believes in Bahá'u'lláh he or she will try to obey the laws, will grow into an upright, trustworthy adult and will thus be protected from these unwise and indeed dreadful attitudes which pervade the youth culture of today. The belief confers protection and even if it were not true, it would still confer that protection. The very fact that a belief in Bahá'u'lláh can confer such a protect is an empirical proof of the power of the source of the revelation.
It is my hope that reading this explanation will help both adults and youth to understand their beliefs and to realise the power belief has to change their lives and to protect them from harm.

"Immeasurably exalted at Thou O Lord! Protect us from what lieth in front of us and behind us, above our heads, on our right, on our left, below our feet and every other side to which we are exposed. Verily, Thy protection over all things is unfailing."
Ken Carew (written when I should have been preparing work for my students)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• NEWSLETTER INDEX • ARCHIVES INDEX • COUNCIL FOR SCOTLAND •
Copyright © 1999, Bahá'í Council for Scotland

Onion pirates wrote:>
"If our life and choices are predetermined, we have no responsibility. There is no use punishing crime, the misdeed was inevitable. Contracts are useless; if a party to the contract is doomed to break it, it will be broken, so why bother. No promises can be binding; there is no use for marriage. We may as well draw lots as vote in an election."

But who says they are completly pre-determined? I'll give you an example from christianity, free will is of completly a decision for the individual to make up for themselves. Even if we use the concept that God has predetermined your path in life, he still left the choice up to you to decide which path it will be, Good or bad, right or wrong, you utilize your free will to make such decisions. When I say right or wrong and good or bad, I am only using what the bible uses for these terms, harming or killing another human "without reason for vindication". Vindication is considered an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. That is why you see every civilized country on this earth use the cause and effect method for laws, because you were the cause of the soon to be effect that will be brought upon you. Now harm to another can be left up to many numerous definitions, still with this ever changing world of technology we will continue to see more and more causes and effects for these decisions we make (internet hacking hasn't been around to long). It is true that there are many mortal sins in religious beleifs, with no religion being any more right or wrong than the other, only what is right or wrong for what you find to be the truth in your chosen religion or non religion. Just as anything else there is no universal answer, because free will is completly left for the eyes of the beholder to make that decision.

Who says they're predetermined?

Other folks on this thread, I think.

I subscribe to my own theory of ethics that holds that actions motivated by kindness or love are good and actions motivated by hate are bad. It is pointless to judge someone's actions if they didn't have any choice in whether they are done.
Do you have a basis for your theory, or did you simply decide upon these various principles? If the latter, then it is not a theory of ethics.

I also simply can't enjoy things that I didn't choose to do. I went to a vacation in California recently, but because I was forced, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I could have.
Hmm. What if determinists were correct, and we had no free will? Would you cease to enjoy things simply because you knew your choice wasn't free? It's obvious that you enjoy things irrespective of whether you have free will or not because if you had no free will, your pleasure would be pre-determined. Your example of going to California is irrelevant, I doubt I need to explain why.

We all strive to live for our own reasons, I love it don't you?
I doubt as many people are conscious of a "reason for living", let alone striving for it.

If our life and choices are predetermined, we have no responsibility. There is no use punishing crime, the misdeed was inevitable. Contracts are useless; if a party to the contract is doomed to break it, it will be broken, so why bother. No promises can be binding; there is no use for marriage. We may as well draw lots as vote in an election.

you have to bother....otherwise if there is no contract then how can they break it as they are predetermined to.


Gods that too easy

[QUOTE=Hieraphobia] I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you didn't read your post through; but I was under the impression that if we were to have free will it would very well depend on the person, and the choice would very well depend on the person's reaction to a situation. [QUOTE]

Okay. So let's say we *do* have free will. According to your argument, our choices *still* depend on the person and the situation, making them essentially formulas: Person + situation + nature of choice = outcome. You can't expect an avowed pacifist to choose to go to war without some intervening experience that makes them change their mind. If our choices are dependent on anything at all they can't really be called *free*, can they?

From what I understand, research has shown our brains register activity a split-second after an action (the N100). Therefore if this is true, we're not acting but reacting. Aren't we in fact rationalising our actions after we have committed them? In this case there is no free will as we have no conscious control over anything we do. We merely do, then a nanosecond later realised what we're doing and rationalise it as that's what we wanted to do.
Which brings up the question of what is making our decisions? I think it's the bacteria - did you know there's more bacteria cells in our body than body cells by a considerable factor. What's to stop them from influencing our behaviour?
If it were the case that our concious brains simply rationalize decisions already made, there would be no need for the concious brain. It would, in effect, be a waste of energy, and so unlikely to survive selection presssures. But a more likely answer that I've read is that the concious brain evaluates subconcious decisions, and so influences the subconcious. That way, the next time the event comes up, your choice may be different.

Okay. So let's say we *do* have free will. According to your argument, our choices *still* depend on the person and the situation, making them essentially formulas: Person + situation + nature of choice = outcome. You can't expect an avowed pacifist to choose to go to war without some intervening experience that makes them change their mind. If our choices are dependent on anything at all they can't really be called *free*, can they?
You commit the usual mistake of undermining reason. People make choices depending on their experience but their choices and reasoning may be incorrect. If somebody has experienced X occuring before Y they may hold that X causes Y holding that they have inductive, empirical evidence. Somebody else however, may inform them that they are commiting a logical fallacy in asserting that X causes Y - post hoc ergo propter hoc.

There are various roads that the individual may come across. He cannot logically assert that X causes Y, but he can believe it based on his conviction; or he can simply not assert it and hold that perhaps Y follows X, but is not caused by X. The bit that determinism cannot account for is whether or not the individual will change his mind. Usually a determinist will produce a wonderful circular argument saying that it was determined that the individual was going to change their mind and therefore we have no free will, but determinism still doesn't account for the fact that there are different roads to walk.

My view is that, essentially, it comes down to a metaphysical problem of the actual road versus the possible roads. Determinism says there is only one road, where possibilities do not exist, whereas free will says there are many possible roads that exist but only one can be chosen.

If it were the case that our concious brains simply rationalize decisions already made, there would be no need for the concious brain.
Studies show that it's easier to remember rational thoughts compared to non-rational thoughts vis. raw data is forgotten in about a second, and beyond that, to acoustic and semantic, it gets longer - ranging from 32 seconds to a life time. You remember ideas, or the form of objects, rather than the actual object itself. Therefore our memories of events happening a long time ago are merely the rearrangement of ideas into a particular sequence. That doesn't sound like a waste of energy to me.