Thread: Freewill

As I see it, we follow programming that has been coded basically at random from the circumstances of our biology and our experiences. Anyone following their automatic programming, meaning the programming they acquired randomly, is a robot who has no free will. They are only engaging repeating clockwork thought processes. Free will, then, is the ability of the "I", the "me", the presence you feel that people call your "soul," which is the entity that is a slave to the programming, it's the ability of that entity to recognize that it is the slave of programs it did not choose, and through work and effort, achieve a DIFFERENT set of programs, ones that you CHOOSE. Free will means recognizing we are conditioned, programmed beings, and working to change that programming to fall in line with what you truly want yourself to be.

As an example, I grew up a closed-minded, misanthropic, socially crippled, militant atheist who was generally a complete asshole. My programming pushed me towards this. It was easy for me to be this. Through a lot of years of work, I have changed that programming in increments towards what I actually want to be. I am still ultimately following programs, but they are programs I have chosen, not ones chosen for me.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

Spoiler for long post:

One more thing that's interesting.

You are exactly right, one desire appeared more enticing than the other. However, when you declared that..

You have to realize what is underneath the desire for you and/or your body to conform to the addictive substance or activity.

The addiction is not sustained through the addictive substance and/or activity, it is the wounds, fears, and anything that prevents happiness that one is trying to mask. That is what is underneath the desire, the motivation, for one to enable themselves to use the addictive substance and/or behavior.

The addictive behavior is a method of controlling stress, and as long as it can give them the sense of feeling happy, they will continue to do so.

They are basically using that substance that creates the behavior to continue doing so as an excuse for controlling stress. And I don't mean this in an negative way, it is their choice to use this to control something, to alleviate themselves from the wounds/fears/etc. that would prevent them from sustaining happiness.

Some addicts do not consider fast-forwarding the situation should they choose to use the substance/activity. If they can see the outcome, ponder on the consequences, it helps with them understanding that the detriments are greater than the temporary benefits.

But here's a situation that can imply that there can be freewill in one's own path of overcoming an addiction.

When a person knows someone has an addiction, the first response, the instinct if you will, is to rescue them, to save them....this leads to controlling them, lecturing them, showering them with negativity that does not help the situation at all.

In fact, it's avoiding the problem, because the person who cares for this person with the addiction is trying to save that person as a means to make themselves feel good.

There cannot be true freedom if one uses others as sources of happiness. They have to be responsible of their own happiness.

Then they can feel freedom, because basing happiness from others is like an addiction itself, because you rely on others to exhibit your addictive behavior of using them to feel good.

They can let the desire be their excuse to continue this, but they have to make the decision, the choice, the will, to actually become aware that they have the problem.

It's this same awareness that distinguishes us from animals.

So how can a person who uses others for their happiness overcome this addictive habit of doing so? They align themselves to the solution without denying the problem they have.


Here's another situation that can imply freewill.

If there's a support center, or a rehab center that focuses on what's underneath the desire that causes the addictive behavior in the first place, and the addict is aware of this, but chooses not to...it's because if they wanted to change, they have to take full responsibility of their actions.

So if they knock on the door at the center, here's where they have to make the decision:

Once they person opens the door, they wait for the person to make an action...they wait for them to demonstrate that they are willing to take full responsibility into finding a behavior that is of benefit to them rather than a detriment.

Because if the support group "pulls them in" and says "Come on in, come in!" the addict is falling for their suggestion. If the addict relies on their suggestion, rather than taking full responsibility of themselves, they will continue to use that person's support to fuel themselves to continue with the addictive behavior.

The support itself sustains how they can control stress, and they not only take advantage of that, it doesn't stop them from gradually moving away from the addictive behavior.

The support (people are specialized in seeing addicts go through this) have to realize that they make sure that the addict has to take the initiative to make a change to themselves, instead of being spoon fed with "you can't do this!" "This is bad for you!"

If the support can show that they themselves are responsible for their own happiness and health, then the addict may feel compelled to reflect that nature.

And the point where it seems they won't have freewill (to an extent) is the breaking point. By the breaking point, it means there is no way for the addict to continue with their addictive behavior. So they have NO choice (temporarily) than to either find ways to get back to the addiction, OR take full responsibility into changing that behavior to something of positive nature.

It's the through their demonstration, not words, that shows they are making the choice, that they are not using the desire, or the urge the body needs to reach equilibrium as an excuse to continue the addictive behavior.

It does feel as though choice exists on multiple levels, as well as control. But the choice is whether or not to cling to control, and the control appears to be over what we focus our attention on, and for how long can we face our softer/injured parts before we turn away and begin the running/chasing again that is addiction. Freedom comes when you stop running/chasing and start facing. Freedom comes when you give up trying to control things through your reactions and when you begin controlling your awareness instead. Freedom is not the ability to choose how you react, but simply if you react. If you react to stimuli, you don't really control the process that occurs. It feels as though there's some element of control, because we have this gestalt function to reduce dissonance known as the ego, but it's going to go with whatever decision appears best and it doesn't necessarily control which decision appears best.

So there's a sort of false sense of control we have, which animals do not, and that is that they do not imprison themselves the same way we do. Latched onto our attempt to control ourselves and the world, we gain this thing called an identity which we compare all our planned actions to. We wonder "Would I do this, being me?" and then we are often forced to justify our character, often through role-models and other examples. This need to synchronize our actions based on who we think we're supposed to be and act like causes less freedom, even though it's used to be in control. Animals do not suffer from this, so even though from our perspective they're just machines reacting to stimuli based on pre-conditioned processes, they are more free. They are not imprisoned by identity nor by a sense of lack (except perhaps hunger, thirst and illness). We are able to recognize ourselves and other and so we also imprison ourselves by comparing ourselves to others. Then we wonder why the world is treating us like such shit, and only because we aren't doing as well as others. At this moment we become like mystics or fatalists, thinking we have no control and it's the world that grants us fortune or not. We do that for several reasons, primarily because it's easier to give up responsibility. It doesn't take too much thought to realize even if it feels more difficult, life becomes more liberating when you take responsibility, but unfortunately just because every human has the ability to reduce dissonance that doesn't mean they all use it.

The question, at the end, that I cannot answer, is this: Is there a ghost in the machine? And I wondered if a bunch of robots existed without "souls" or whatever thing we think gives us choice, and they were programmed to pursue success and prosperity and evolve as time went on... would we be able to tell the difference between the choices they made and the choices we made? Would there be a difference?

Good stuff Omnis, I guess what could lead to the path of finding that answer is the same awareness you talked of. As the awareness grows and continues to evolve, then maybe we might find that difference through psychoanalysis or other means learned through this reality that relies on observation and interpreting from that, even though it may have flaws in how it interprets it.

Does free will exist? Am I literally typing this because of the fact that, only I chose to do this? Or is it because everything that has ever happened to me would lead me to typing a topic like this on DreamViews?

I met a guy who didn't believe in free will. He believes that anything that happens to you will determine the outcome of future events that you part-take in. So in essence, everything that has happened, from the beginning of time, has made you who you are and determines what you are doing right now.

This got me thinking even more. If free will doesn't exist and the future events are just a result of past events, then is it a gigantic equation? Do we as people even really have a say? If there were a being that was highly intelligent, would it have figured out how to see into the future because it knows how everything works, thus predicting the future accurately? (haha it would know what it'll be doing in 50 years. Literally.)

Or, to get your brain to turn to jello even more, is there something more? Is there something missing from the equation that we will never be able to figure out? I'm hurting my brain just thinking about it.

Give me some feedback. I'd like to see all of the vast opinions out there!

I'm sorry for any typos, I'm really tired right now and don't feel like checking.

Originally Posted by ThisWitheredMan

As I see it, we follow programming that has been coded basically at random from the circumstances of our biology and our experiences. Anyone following their automatic programming, meaning the programming they acquired randomly, is a robot who has no free will. They are only engaging repeating clockwork thought processes. Free will, then, is the ability of the "I", the "me", the presence you feel that people call your "soul," which is the entity that is a slave to the programming, it's the ability of that entity to recognize that it is the slave of programs it did not choose, and through work and effort, achieve a DIFFERENT set of programs, ones that you CHOOSE. Free will means recognizing we are conditioned, programmed beings, and working to change that programming to fall in line with what you truly want yourself to be.

As an example, I grew up a closed-minded, misanthropic, socially crippled, militant atheist who was generally a complete asshole. My programming pushed me towards this. It was easy for me to be this. Through a lot of years of work, I have changed that programming in increments towards what I actually want to be. I am still ultimately following programs, but they are programs I have chosen, not ones chosen for me.

To elaborate a little: decisions you make are determined by you judging your past experiences and weighing them and deciding on which answer seems best. Which answer seems best is a matter of perspective and experience. You rarely if ever control your past experiences or your perspective, so your decisions are most often made based on things that are outside of your control. Hence, no free will, unless you have willfully changed sculpted your perception and experience with the intent of changing your decision-making processes.

Dude. Fuck the government. Fuck religion. And fuck destiny. I make my own choices

Didn't we already go through this?

Who's free will? Who are "you?" What exactly do you define as the thing which can act freely?

Free will isn't a person, so asking who's seems a bit inappropriate. Your soul man, your soul is in question. Pretend that you aren't human, you are an eternal being of pure energy. So you have the choice to make your own decisions or not? No need to make this more complicated than it is.

It depends on whether physics is deterministic or not. Quantum mechanics suggests it is probabilistic rather than deterministic, but then again, there's still a lot we don't know about physics.

If it's deterministic, everything could in theory be calculated and you could in theory know what you'll be doing at an exact moment in 50 years. If it's not deterministic, then it can't be calculated, you can only make guesses, which will shortly diverge far from what actually happens.

If we knew the exact location of all the particles in the universe, we could predict the weather with a kickass supercomputer pretty well. But the problem is, even if we knew the location of all the atoms in the universe, subatomic particles pop into and out of existence without warning.

And then there's the idea that on a short-term things may look pretty chaotic, but on a long-run things have patterns. Take, for example: weather, stock market, politics, and so on. We may not know exactly what the weather will be in a year, but we know that, on average, the weather is cooler in the winter than it is in the summer, and this is a predictable pattern.

You can still only generalize about these things. Even if you see clouds in the distance, theres no guarantee it will rain.

Originally Posted by PlanesWalker

You can still only generalize about these things. Even if you see clouds in the distance, theres no guarantee it will rain.

True, but for some reason, why is it that when we look at the past, things always seem so clear, but we never see them coming from the future?

Originally Posted by phasemancer

It depends on whether physics is deterministic or not. Quantum mechanics suggests it is probabilistic rather than deterministic, but then again, there's still a lot we don't know about physics.

If it's deterministic, everything could in theory be calculated and you could in theory know what you'll be doing at an exact moment in 50 years. If it's not deterministic, then it can't be calculated, you can only make guesses, which will shortly diverge far from what actually happens.

I believe that the universe is probabilistic. But that doesn't imply freewill. I think determinism is ridiculous because it depends on impossible hypotheticals to even converse about. I don't agree that the hypothetical deterministic scenarios are even possible in this universe.

But that still doesn't imply any sort of freewill. Freewill is based upon false assumptions about identity. We are a colony with a cognitive factor evolved in order to reduce dissonance. What you call your "will" or "soul" is merely a program we developed to work out inconsistencies in our conditioning. We are still going to make the best decision possible.

I do believe in choice to some extent, but when I talk about choice, I talk about the choice to stop, or to continue. When I talk about choice, I am not trying to imply any sort of control, only resistance. True control comes from surrender. You have the choice to face things or hide from things. To be attentive on the present or to run and chase.

There are certain things that are outside of our control. For example: If you are born into family in Congo, you will never be elected president in the United States, no matter how much you want to be, due to legal laws in the United States.
If your mother has an abortion while pregnant with you, you will die, end of story. Life sucks.
If your Dad was bald, chances are you will be bald, too. Life sucks.
If your parents both had blue eyes, then you won't have red eyes, no matter how much you want to be a vampire. Life sucks.
Some things are just out of your control.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I believe that the universe is probabilistic. But that doesn't imply freewill. I think determinism is ridiculous because it depends on impossible hypotheticals to even converse about. I don't agree that the hypothetical deterministic scenarios are even possible in this universe.

But that still doesn't imply any sort of freewill. Freewill is based upon false assumptions about identity. We are a colony with a cognitive factor evolved in order to reduce dissonance. What you call your "will" or "soul" is merely a program we developed to work out inconsistencies in our conditioning. We are still going to make the best decision possible.

I do believe in choice to some extent, but when I talk about choice, I talk about the choice to stop, or to continue. When I talk about choice, I am not trying to imply any sort of control, only resistance. True control comes from surrender. You have the choice to face things or hide from things. To be attentive on the present or to run and chase.

I guess it depends on how you define free will.

If I get a choice, to move my left arm or my right arm, then what are the conditions required that the decision was made by free will?

In my opinion what would happen is that a neural signal would start and it has two stable states it can reach, one leading to the left arm being moved and the other leading to the right arm being moved. Which state it would stabilize in would essentially be random, if there was no bias caused by any input, memories etc.

Is this free will? It has a certain degree of freedom since the action may have a 50/50 chance of going either way, and if you had made the decision again, another decision could have been made. But, one could argue that the decision was caused by the random movement atoms, acting pretty much as a random number generator, ultimately causing either your left or right hand to move.

I think maybe the concept of free will (or not free will) doesn't even make sense to begin with.

We make decisions based on our desires, memories, sensory input etc. Our brain is pretty much a kind of computer which tries to figure out how to satisfy our desires, and it makes the decisions we want, in some way, and I'm not sure it makes that much sense to label these decisions as free or non-free.

I think freewill as we understand it comes from our erroneous view of identity. We think we are the same person now that we were 5 years ago even though the way we respond to data has changed completely. As I have argued before, this comes from a struggle to feel in control. If we invent something called me and identify with it, we can feel as though the me controls the actions I also wish to identify with. But control on this level does not actually exist.

Granted it's important not to let this thought lead you toward negating responsibility over your actions. And that's where things begin to feel contradictory, what is the difference between being responsible for your actions and being in control of your actions? I want to say identity, the concept that bundles the person we are now with the actions we remember from our past and plan for our future. You are responsible for your actions right now, but "you" were not in control of yourself in the past, that "you" is dead. The you that exists now was just born.

Another important factor in being responsible is realizing the purpose of the ego. It reduces dissonance in the brain, this essentially means the ego is a process which allows us to compare different possibilities for compatibility. Once you understand the ego is just another process, evolved into place because it proved itself to be a sustainable feature, you can then take a perspective on control where you retain responsibility by continuing to reduce dissonance without struggling for control by understanding your process is just doing the best it can and your actions are always just the best possible actions you can conceive. Sometimes this may mean a random action, or a testing action. So we'll move the right arm rather than the left, due to the requirement for an outcome despite reality's probabilistic nature.