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My view of "Free Will"
The mere though of it with change your perceptions of time, how you think, about time and you still never get to that certain point of nirvana that you would like. We don't exactly have the answer, but that's science. We'll understand it sooner or later.
My view on Free Will:
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I believe in a form destiny(don't go yet!!). My reason needs a lot of explanation(much like other views).
Imagine the the outer cosmos where two giant space rocks are flying on a direct course towards each other. They collide. What happens? Rocks go flying everywhere, heat is made, couple chemical reactions are made. NOW imagine that time slot was replayed over and over(AND I don't mean like a video the actual time would repeat over and over). The rocks would collide just as before over and over. Same chemical reactions, same rocks flying into the same direction, same chemical reactions.
Now think of this in a human society. We are not above the laws of the universe to change this path. If a car crashed in front of a bunch of people the time slot would be replayed the same way every single time. The same people who turned to look, the same people who would run towards the vehicle to help, the same people who ran away, blinked, breathed out, breathed in, screamed, stood silent, ect, ect, ect, ect, would do it over and over again. We all have the basic nature of using chemical reactions, like the space rocks did and there would be no room to have that ability to "change an outcome" even if you could have done it at the time. The point is you didn't and you will never be able to.
This leads to the idea that life is predetermined(which is true) and life is meaningless(which is not). It's the first thought when thinking of the will of humankind. The easiest way to understand why life is meaningful is the fact you are living and experiencing it. Why would the fact of us realizing that a predetermined life automatically make life unlivable.
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Another point:
Let's just say that I want to grab a random ball out of a bag without looking at it; Let's say it's a blue one. My response to that is from when time began(VERY IMPORTANT) up until now, everything has had a "cause and effect route" to this very time when I pick up the ball everything has been "just so" so when I grabbed the ball it came out as blue. One little difference at the beginning of the universe would have changed the outcome so dramatically I would never be here to pick the blue ball, have the bag it came from, been born, or written this post.
----------
It's weird and almost backwards thinking. I'm excited really want to see what you guys say.
My view on Free Will:
----------
I believe in a form destiny(don't go yet!!). My reason needs a lot of explanation(much like other views).
Imagine the the outer cosmos where two giant space rocks are flying on a direct course towards each other. They collide. What happens? Rocks go flying everywhere, heat is made, couple chemical reactions are made. NOW imagine that time slot was replayed over and over(AND I don't mean like a video the actual time would repeat over and over). The rocks would collide just as before over and over. Same chemical reactions, same rocks flying into the same direction, same chemical reactions.
Now think of this in a human society. We are not above the laws of the universe to change this path. If a car crashed in front of a bunch of people the time slot would be replayed the same way every single time. The same people who turned to look, the same people who would run towards the vehicle to help, the same people who ran away, blinked, breathed out, breathed in, screamed, stood silent, ect, ect, ect, ect, would do it over and over again. We all have the basic nature of using chemical reactions, like the space rocks did and there would be no room to have that ability to "change an outcome" even if you could have done it at the time. The point is you didn't and you will never be able to.
This leads to the idea that life is predetermined(which is true) and life is meaningless(which is not). It's the first thought when thinking of the will of humankind. The easiest way to understand why life is meaningful is the fact you are living and experiencing it. Why would the fact of us realizing that a predetermined life automatically make life unlivable.
----------
Another point:
Let's just say that I want to grab a random ball out of a bag without looking at it; Let's say it's a blue one. My response to that is from when time began(VERY IMPORTANT) up until now, everything has had a "cause and effect route" to this very time when I pick up the ball everything has been "just so" so when I grabbed the ball it came out as blue. One little difference at the beginning of the universe would have changed the outcome so dramatically I would never be here to pick the blue ball, have the bag it came from, been born, or written this post.
----------
It's weird and almost backwards thinking. I'm excited really want to see what you guys say.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gerald Scott on -
If you mean, I had a choice of whether to be an atheist or not, you are wrong. I could not be anything else but an atheist. My thoughts tell me what to do, and I do it. When I get up in the morning, I don't choose milk or cream for my coffee. My thoughts say get the fuc*** milk stupid. There is no debate ever. It's not free will. It's thoughts that run my life and that's not free will. "I think, therefore I am", descartes.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Lin on -
If you have control on your thoughts, then you have free will. If there are two choices: confirm or deny free will and you choose one, then you exercise free will. Even if you deny free will, you use free will.
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Permalink Reply by Gerald Scott on
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You are kidding, aren't you? What book did you find that in?
You must be very smart to have control over all your thoughts. And why do you need to control your thoughts? How do you control your thoughts?
As you can tell, I'm not as bright as you.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Lin on
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No. I'm not saying I can control all my thoughts. As long as I can control some of it, then it is good enough.
If you learn to play chess often, you'll figure out how to control your thoughts.
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Permalink Reply by Jim DePaulo on -
There are a multitude of factors that direct our decisions - social constraints, emotional state, moral standards, self preservation, peer approval, etc. All of our decisions are filtered through those preset conditions. The filtering process proceeds very quickly and below the threshold of our awareness , this results in a very small gap between the presentation of the options and the decision made. It is the brevity of that gap that gives us the illusion of free will - an effect without cause.
Free will is theist construct.
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Permalink Reply by Ronin on -
I see free will as a continuum. Obviously we have more choices in responding to a stimulus than an amoeba does, and as animals get larger brains, they have a slightly better ability to choose rather than be governed by instinct. So elephants and whales have more options than dogs and they more than salamanders, etc... Humans have more free will than anything on Earth as far as we know.
Nothing that we know of has 100% free will. To me that would entail choosing to breathe, choosing to love your baby as the doctor hands it to you the 1st time, etc... in other words not being governed by instinct or conditioning in any way.
We can at least contemplate an almost infinite number of responses in any given situation. I don't know why we choose what we do. Some say that quantum effects allow our brains to be more flexible than always choosing the same thing if we could rewind the tape 1 million times. I have also read that that that idea is complete bunk, I don't know what causes, at least, our appearance of free will. But something is going on that is not going on with smaller brains.
However I disagree with the idea that life has meaning. People can find meaning in their own lives, but there is no objective purpose for life. Life is the recycling of free energy at the surface of the earth, as Frank Herbert put it. That's all. Some day it will all be gone. Without eternity, there is no purpose.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Liddy on -
Life has meaning to us in the that, as a collective, care about each other. In reality life is meaningless and void.
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Permalink Reply by Sammy on -
So, I too have been debating the 'free will' thing with myself lately, AND...
I finally agree. Mostly. I wouldn't refer to every occurance as 'destiny', because, while I believe everything- my thoughts, personality, and actions, as well as that of others, are predetermined, I don't believe it 'all happens for a reason', or that it's 'meant to be', but rather 'just it'. So, you picking up the blue ball is the outcome of all of those events, but those events didn't occur that way because they would, in the end, benifit anyone or anything. They just did.
I reached the same conclusion, that although we can't change and outcome, our awareness of the cause and effect routes that take place are so complex and interesting, that they are worth staying around for. And while I don't think life itself has a moral objective, I believe that we can create our own, which would logically be based on our ideas and likes/dislikes, which is, once again, predetermined.
The one thing that does do my head in, is whether or not me reaching this conclusion, and then pondering whether or not to rebel against a particular action or reaction I'd normally take, can be seen as a 'concious decision', or, whether that's simply another inevitable occurance.
And I'm still unsure as to whether or not I believe we are concious.
Though recently, I have come to understand that some define free will differently, and therefore believe that it's compatible with determinism. It's all very interesting.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism_and_incompatibilism
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Permalink Reply by Jaume on -
some define free will differently
That's indeed the crux of the matter. My own understanding of free will would put me in the compatibilist camp (since I'm also a determinist), but it wouldn't necessarily be so if I had to assume other peoples' definitions of free will.
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Permalink Reply by Craig A. James on -
I've always thought this question is irrelevant. Here's a thought experiment. Suppose we truly have free choice. Perhaps you can justify this supposition using quantum theory (which is probably true,) but for now, let's make it an axiom.
Now, suppose someone invents a time machine and travels back from the future, and that person knows ahead of time what decision you are about to make.
Does that now mean you don't have free choice, simply because the time traveler came back from the future? How would that be any different, from your point of view?
Furthermore, suppose the time traveler couldn't communicate with you, maybe because he landed inside a maximum-security prison by accident, and suppose he wrote down that he knew of your decision.
You'd still weigh all the factors, and the electrochemical events in your brain would still be completely identical to what they'd have been if the time traveler hadn't come back. In other words, even though the time traveler knows your decision, you still have to make that decision. You still have free choice.
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Permalink Reply by Jacob Gladden on -
Free will is not anti-determinism. Nothing in our universe can be anti-deterministic because determinism is what we call the underlying rule of all things in motion. Free will comes from the awareness of choice not the making of a choice. Without awareness of your actions you can still act. Those actions however would not be exercised by free will but by animal drives. The ability to ignore your instincts is the exercise of free will. Choosing not to eat even though you are hungry. Free will gives us an ability no other animal really has. The ability to be stupid. To choose to do something irrational is totally human. We can know we are wrong and go ahead and try something anyways. Animals are unaware of choices made, whether smart or not, which eliminates the application of the word stupid. I am free to go against my own genetic biological drives and do something stupid. That is free will. The opposite of free will would be an action taken by oneself that is against your own will. Ever see The Manchurian Candidate?
0 degrees Kelvin is the temperature at which all molecular motion stops. What happens to strong nuclear force and electrical charge when all molecular motion stops? Are those molecules still deterministic if they are motionless? Determinism only applies to particles in motion. Can you even have particles that are not in motion in a deterministic universe?
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