NationStates Jolt Archive

I was arguing about free will earlier on this forum and, stupid person that I am, there were a lot of arguments I didn't understand. Many of the ones I didn't get seemed to rely on a different concept of free will than the one I have. I'm no expert, so I figured I was probably just wrong. My question is:

Isn't free will the mind being free from direct causal relationships in the physical world(I.E., you have a separate mind that gets to interpret physical reality and make whatever decisions it wants)? If it isn't, what does free will mean freedom from?

I was arguing about free will earlier on this forum and, stupid person that I am, there were a lot of arguments I didn't understand. Many of the ones I didn't get seemed to rely on a different concept of free will than the one I have. I'm no expert, so I figured I was probably just wrong. My question is:

Isn't free will the mind being free from direct causal relationships in the physical world(I.E., you have a separate mind that gets to interpret physical reality and make whatever decisions it wants)? If it isn't, what does free will mean freedom from?

Well, for those who want to keep some sort of notion of free will but feel that it's a bit flakey to go positing a whole separate soul or whatever, it seems to come down to reflexivity: because you're conscious of yourself and he world and can make hypotheses about what would happen if you did certain things, etc. Obviously you're still ultimately subject to physical stimuli because your brain's just another body-part, but this lets you (at least partially) hold onto ideas like personal responsibility (or a watered-down version of it). If you want details, Dan Dennett has written a lot about it.

Well, for those who want to keep some sort of notion of free will but feel that it's a bit flakey to go positing a whole separate soul or whatever, it seems to come down to reflexivity: because you're conscious of yourself and he world and can make hypotheses about what would happen if you did certain things, etc. Obviously you're still ultimately subject to physical stimuli because your brain's just another body-part, but this lets you (at least partially) hold onto ideas like personal responsibility (or a watered-down version of it). If you want details, Dan Dennett has written a lot about it.

So basically its free will if it goes through a certain part of your brain?

I suppose if one allows theological issues to intervene then there might be some kind of free will of a 'msytic' sort. But that makes it a bit complicated because whose notion of a soul (and the implications that stem from the conception of soul) would we use to reckon what free will would look like if it existed?

The important part of the concept so far as I understand is an ability to 'choose oneself'. Now I dont think this is ever meant to mean that you can choose to sprout wings, but rather 'self' in the sense of what you think about, how you think, etc. If you think of it like this, then it more closely resembles a skill than it does anything else. Further we can see that the skill is variable between individuals and across any particular individual's life-time. For instance a baby has virtually no free-will skills when compared to an adult.

I believe free-will (the non-mystic, soul-derived kind) refers to our capacity to realise what we are thinking and to intervene in our own thought/emotional processes. Like any other human skill it's capacity (even if there is a soul/mystic element) can be facilitated by some factors and inhibited by others. The argument 'there cant be free will be of cause and effect' doesnt negate 'free-will' if you consider free-will as being a skill that is unevenly distributed in the population and throughout a person's life and is subject to all kinds of factors (much like running, or juggling. We know humans can do both, but not all do either, and not all who do do either or both do them equally as well as each other).

Mind/Body dualism is cartesian "ghost in the machine."

Where: Mind is totally free to choose what it wishes

and

Body is entirely determined by cause and effect.

Question: How the hell can these two interact?!

Descartes came up with an incredible BS answer, something about the soul residing in the hypothalamus, anycase illogical.

I've always thought that free will meant not being slaves to our instincts like all the other mammals on the planet are. We can choose what we do, and when we do it. There are influencing factors, but no one and nothing can make that choice for us.

Take Kurt Cobain for example. Rich, successful, extremely talented, married and way popular. Now his head is missing because of a choice he made.

Another: Oprah Winfrey or Ricki Lake. Fat, lazy, overeater, then because of a choice she made she's in shape and has tons of energy.

Do bears or whales diet? Do doggies jump in front of cars on purpose, or kittens off of cliffs because they're not happy? No, they don't have the choice, they don't have the option, they don't have the freedom.

Without putting any religious spin on it, that's the best I can do. Hope it helps :)

i think most people most of the time do only use their instincts..

i think most people most of the time do only use their instincts..

As do I, the illusion of free-will comes from the inability of instinct to adapt to its environment, thus making it unpredictable.

Instincts could not keep up with cultural growth.