Thread: Do we have free will?

I think people arrogantly assume they have free will, but really for the most part they are just mindless DCs. To really have free will would mean having the freedom of a lucid dream.

In a recent lucid, I couldn't think of anything to do, so I just jumped up on a table and threw my arms in the air like an olympic gold medalist on the podium. All the DCs were looking at me like WTF?

Unless you can behave like that in RL without caring what people think, you don't have free will. That pretty girl you want to talk to but don't have the guts implies that you don't have free will.

You go to school everyday because you think you have to, but if one day you really don't want to do, don't go. You think you're going to get in trouble? Big deal, there is nothing anyone can do to you if you truly have free will.

I've always skipped school and work whenever the hell I feel like it. People always tell me I can't do that, but you know what? I can, with no negative consequences. Sure, eventually it could get to the point where I could lose my job, but my will is such that I want to keep my job, so I do.

Originally Posted by The Cusp

To really have free will would mean having the freedom of a lucid dream.

I think Sanquis meant the ability to make choices vs. the illusion of choice, not the ability to effectively alter your surroundings.

My answer is yes, I do believe we have free will.

There is a way the future is going to happen, and there is a 100% chance that it will happen that way.

Everything is determined by the laws of physics. No event can escape that. If determinism is not the truth, then there are uncaused events at some level. Uncaused events are impossible, so determinism is the truth.

Originally Posted by Invader

I think Sanquis meant the ability to make choices vs. the illusion of choice, not the ability to effectively alter your surroundings.

My answer is yes, I do believe we have free will.

I think The Cusp means to say what he said a few sentences lower from what you quoted. I agree with him, although this is just the first step that argues free will. The next would be something like what Universal Mind pointed out. I think there is no free will, I'm just an observer.

Yo!

Before when I was 14, I used to think that every of my action is all chemical-based on my brain... I wasn't conscious of my actions because of that assumption. I would get lots of mindless stupors and had chaotic thoughts. I had trouble thinking because I had no control over my thoughts.

Well. How to recognize free will is by imagining the future... There are things beyond your control to change but there are things that you have responsibility in that can change the future. Think of all of the choices you could choose that would end up altering the future...

I agree with him, although this is just the first step that argues free will.

Agreeing/disagreeing is easy, isn't it? It shouldn't require so much effort. People are machines. Living their lives as some non-lucid dream and they spend their lives constantly agree/disagreeing to another other than coming up with their own thoughts and beliefs... Eh, obviously group thinking is really no thinking. Mechanical action, it takes no effort!!! (I'm not saying agreeing/disagreeing is bad... but there's a lot more a person can do than just that)

Now onto effort. I'm not going to call myself simply smart. Generally, I see this post of mine as something I put effort in typing. Though even I have the option to not post here, I'm conscious of that option!! I chose posting this for this topic.

And, to be honest, making this post I started out lazy... right now my brain's like, "No, don't post this message... it's stupid! It won't help anyone." but I'm posting this anyways because it's what I chose regardless of the brain!!!!

To change the future... I have to focus a lot on the present, be aware as much as I can. If I had more emotion - that drive to post, maybe this post would be a lot better too! (I have more to speak on free will, but it would suck to regurgitate things eh??)

If you believe in free will, then think of what that can expand the scope of free will. I'll give you a hint: it abolishes ignorance!!

Yes

Originally Posted by Spi

And, to be honest, making this post I started out lazy... right now my brain's like, "No, don't post this message... it's stupid! It won't help anyone." but I'm posting this anyways because it's what I chose regardless of the brain!!!!

How is it possible for you to make a decision without consulting your brain?

If you believe in free will you must answer this question: Where you do make the decision? In the brain? In a non-material spirit? And in that place, how is the decision made? If the brain (or spirit) needs resources to produce the choice, it is not free; since freedom implies that the brain is not tied down to any prior events. And if the brain doesn't always get a resource, then it has to be random. Can we call randomness free will?

How is it possible for you to make a decision without consulting your brain?

Well, I must be much more than the physical brain eh?

Do we have free will?
I would say that depends on the definition of free will. Personally i don't think we have true, pure free will. I don't think we can even grasp the concept of true free will as we have a brain that works in a certain way, and nothing we can do is going to change that. If you are trying to outsmart your brain, you are going to lose. Period.

But i believe that we have a certain free will, call it an illusionary free will if you may, but it is still a degree of free will. I think that it is a combination of instincts, feelings, experience, logic thinking and free will that make up our daily decisions.

No.

I know we have a literature on the subject numbering into the hundreds, if not thousands of pages here on DV.

My concise answer is no, we do not have free will, but that's also my answer to the question of determinism. Events are not predetermined, however strongly conditioned they may seem toward certain outcomes. Neither are we independent actors with a will to assert. Outcomes or events are themselves illusory: merely a perspective, individual or collective, assumed by unchanging reality upon itself.

The same thing is happening all the time:

Nothing at all.

Originally Posted by Spi

Yo!
Well. How to recognize free will is by imagining the future... There are things beyond your control to change but there are things that you have responsibility in that can change the future. Think of all of the choices you could choose that would end up altering the future...


Agreeing/disagreeing is easy, isn't it? It shouldn't require so much effort. People are machines. Living their lives as some non-lucid dream and they spend their lives constantly agree/disagreeing to another other than coming up with their own thoughts and beliefs... Eh, obviously group thinking is really no thinking. Mechanical action, it takes no effort!!! (I'm not saying agreeing/disagreeing is bad... but there's a lot more a person can do than just that)

Now onto effort. I'm not going to call myself simply smart. Generally, I see this post of mine as something I put effort in typing. Though even I have the option to not post here, I'm conscious of that option!! I chose posting this for this topic.

And, to be honest, making this post I started out lazy... right now my brain's like, "No, don't post this message... it's stupid! It won't help anyone." but I'm posting this anyways because it's what I chose regardless of the brain!!!!

To change the future... I have to focus a lot on the present, be aware as much as I can. If I had more emotion - that drive to post, maybe this post would be a lot better too! (I have more to speak on free will, but it would suck to regurgitate things eh??)

If you believe in free will, then think of what that can expand the scope of free will. I'll give you a hint: it abolishes ignorance!!

By seeing possible outcomes doesn't recognize free will, it just presents the idea of free will. There is nothing in thinking about that or anything else that would in my opinion point to free will.

I don't know if your agree/disagree talk was directed to me, even though you quoted me. I didn't really see the point. Most likely because I don't differentiate between a free will choice and a non-free choice. Is agreeing easy? Well if it represents the persons thoughts, then yes, one would think it's as good as if he had typed it. I agree with reason.

Effort and consciousness don't point to free will either. Both most likely arise from neural activity and if I point to Universal Mind's determinism, both are subject to laws. Instead of thinking that you're forcing the brain into something it doesn't want to do, have you thought about that everything you do comes from the brain. Your effort might as well be a "simple internal conflict", pointing to nothing else than normal brain activity and natural laws. If you think that you aren't a product of brain activity, then I can't argue with your statement.

How many different choices would you make if the universe repeated over and over and over again? Not any I'd presume. So, where is your free will? Why does thinking about something constitute free will if there is ever only one choice?

By seeing possible outcomes doesn't recognize free will, it just presents the idea of free will. There is nothing in thinking about that or anything else that would in my opinion point to free will.

Fine then!!

Most likely because I don't differentiate between a free will choice and a non-free choice.

Maybe you could understand more if you did.
To be more fuzzy, I see free will as making conscious choice. See it through logos and it would be seen as random. I don't think it's random. If it was really random, then I would have no control over myself. The more conscious you are, the greater the scope of your free will. (I also think there are people who lack depth to have the ability to understand that though) So more or less conscious.

How many different choices would you make if the universe repeated over and over and over again? Not any I'd presume. So, where is your free will? Why does thinking about something constitute free will if there is ever only one choice?

It's a paradox. Deal with it!!

Originally Posted by Spi

To be more fuzzy, I see free will as making conscious choice. See it through logos and it would be seen as random. I don't think it's random. If it was really random, then I would have no control over myself. The more conscious you are, the greater the scope of your free will. (I also think there are people who lack depth to have the ability to understand that though) So more or less conscious.

Well if free will equals conscious choice, then I believe in it as well. The problem is that there should be nothing free about conscious choice, making the comparison pointless. I don't think anything is random either.

Originally Posted by Bonsay

The problem is that there should be nothing free about conscious choice, making the comparison pointless.

'Laborate.

I have, a bunch of times. Consciousness arises from brain activity, being a result of chemical reactions bound to follow universal laws. Thus there should be no more free will involved as there is when anything else happens in the universe, like a falling rock.

Oh. Ok. Can the topic die now?

Originally Posted by The Cusp

I think people arrogantly assume they have free will, but really for the most part they are just mindless DCs. To really have free will would mean having the freedom of a lucid dream.

In a recent lucid, I couldn't think of anything to do, so I just jumped up on a table and threw my arms in the air like an olympic gold medalist on the podium. All the DCs were looking at me like WTF?

Unless you can behave like that in RL without caring what people think, you don't have free will. That pretty girl you want to talk to but don't have the guts implies that you don't have free will.

You go to school everyday because you think you have to, but if one day you really don't want to do, don't go. You think you're going to get in trouble? Big deal, there is nothing anyone can do to you if you truly have free will.

I've always skipped school and work whenever the hell I feel like it. People always tell me I can't do that, but you know what? I can, with no negative consequences. Sure, eventually it could get to the point where I could lose my job, but my will is such that I want to keep my job, so I do.

Thank you for this "reminder"

We make our own chains

Imprisioning our own Selves within such a cage as "this"

Living in a reality in flux

Thinking thoughts of "how and what this or that should be"

All the while ignoring how and what things are

Seldom living in the Now

Now

The only point for evoking freedom

It is hard to say. Quantum mechanics is random, but quantum mechanics plays little role in the functioning of neurons. Then again, at the start of the universe, quantum uncertainty reigned, and hence through determinism gave every future event an element of randomness.

I'm a soft determinist. For all intents and purposes, we have free will. We choose to do what ever we do and determinism is no getout clause; just because we were always going to choose to do something, we still chose it, via our thought processes.

I just wanted to see what everyone thought, thankyou for the great responce. I suppose it was a question to myself, about my transgender feelings. I think its human nature to second guess and argue with your own thoughts and feelings but thankyou for all your knowledgable input guys!
DV ROCKS!

Originally Posted by TimeStopper

How is it possible for you to make a decision without consulting your brain?

Consciousness does not depend on a brain in order to function.

That was proven through plant studies that displayed consciousness in plants.

Decision making implies consciousness.

How do you measure consciousness. In plants even?!

It was discovered that by using the galvanic skin response part of a lie detector, the plant would display significant physiological response to particular events going on around it. It was also discovered that a plant possesses the ability to show response to human intent, though no one yet knows how.

My first recommendation would be to check out a book called "The Secret Life of Plants" (written by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird) that details some of the experimentation done in this field. Cleve Backster is the one credited with the discovery of this phenomenon, although a Bengali scientist by the name of Jagadish Chandra Bose had discovered similar responses in plants some 100 years ago. There are other articles online that discuss the so called "Backster Effect" that you can check out, and there are no doubt plenty that cast a healthy amount of skepticism to his claims regardless of the fact that the experiments are repeatable and have been repeated to the success of other scientists researching the same effect.

But how do you measure consciousness?

I watched the mythbusters busting that. They isolated the plant so air disturbance wouldn't effect it, or whatever. Nothing happened. Although it did happen when they were inside with the plant.