snatchbalance

Kieth,

Well, I guess my argument could be that the sum total of your existance, prior to that moment, determined your decision. All such antecedents have converged into an idividual psychology that has no choise but to accept the notion of "free will"

sb

Kent Stevens

I think a more accurate assertion is: more knowledge = more choice. For example, if I know how to fix a car I can fix it myself as well as take it to a mechanic to get fixed. If I don't know how to fix my car my options are more limited.

I could know how to fix the car but still choose not to. I might not fix the car because I was physically disabled by some accident and so could not fix the car. Or it could be that a certain car part was unavailable to me so I could not choose to fix the car. It could also be that I could not be bothered to fix the car or was too busy with other more urgent issues to fix the car.

I find this whole concept of free will to be slippery, vague, and ill defined. I tend to prefer the notion of choice to the idea of free will. I tend to think I can choose to get out of bed this morning, rather than I have the free will to get out of bed in the morning.

Kip

I agree with Bill. If you define the problem correctly, the obvious, albeit undesirable, conclusion is that free will does not exist. The most elegant and simple proof I can give is this:

1. Your entire body is composed of matter.
2. Newton's first law:

An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

In other words, matter can never decide to do anything autonomously.

sweep

think i'll probably go with my feelings- nothing seems to be the only 'thing?' that is free (the future?) yet the only reality is after the fact.

freedom to die and become another- the 01010101.... what will happen next, i wonder?

Bill

"Free will," per se does not exist (in my humble opinion) because truly random causes of human activity do not exist.

If you do any of those things by which you hope to demonstrate to me that you do have "free will," there is a cause operating here: your desire to demonstrate that you have "free will" in reply to my challenge to the whole concept.

Most top-notch philosophers understand "free will" as existing only in the weakest possible sense, where the "root causes" of our actions lie so deep within ourselves that they are virtually inaccessible, and therefore un-analyzable. In that sense, we operate as if we have free will, even though we do know that the causes for our actions do lie within ourselves (as well as coming from our environment).

If you would like to read up on this a bit, I would suggest that you try out the book <a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=637" target="_blank">Think : A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy</a>, which is available for purchase or, in the alternative, in many larger libraries. It is by <a href="http://www.unc.edu/~sblackbu/" target="_blank">Professor Simon Blackburn</a>, one of the foremost philosophers of the world.

== Bill

Bill

We are assembling an incredible amount of information about just how the human brain works. This is objective evidence from brain scans taken while the brain is operating, as well as numerous sorts of psychological tests and analysis of people with various sorts of brain disorders.

And, by the way, we are very successful at predicting how large groups of humans will perform. It is the individual that is difficult to predict. But the difficulty is due to the complexity of the various causes of human behavior. We have a sort-of "chaos" of causes working here, and those are difficult (if not impossible) to model. But "chaotic" is by no means the same as "causeless." The "chaotic" cause is merely unpredictible becuase it cannot (presently) be analyzed in sufficient depth to make it predictable. That is the present state of the problem with predicting individual human behavior.

== Bill

Ierrellus

sweet as a nut,

The cortexial development that allows an organism to engage in premeditated activity is our reality (illusion) of free will. Choose whichever word you want; but the evolutionary development is still valid.

Ierrellus
PAX

sweep

i was initially temped to criticise your reply bill, but that would make me a donkey and essentially limit my options.

i have had a quick browse through 'does relativism matter', and am interested in buying that book you mentioned- i hope there are a few jokes in there- philosophy really needs a heart.

weell.. i wonder if confusion was ever mentioned in available texts on free will?

finally, i wonder if, when we can finally watch the entire machine, in operation, the 'one who knows' is free from the limitations they see.

The Cromwell Institute

Thanks everyone for all the excellent, thought provoking replies. You've pulled my mind in a few new, unexpected directions and that's exactly what I had hoped for when I started this thread. I'm going to let some of the ideas here ferment in my mind for a nice long while and see what I come up with. Hopefully I will come up with something a little more heavyweight next time.

Cheers,

TCI [no connection with Oliver Cromwell whatsoever]

owleye

The Cromwell Institute...

Sartre puts it succinctly that we are "condemned to be free." We have no choice in the matter. We and no one else decides our essential nature. Having arrived, we are thrust into a world in which it seems that the situation makes us who we are. Yet even in the most repressive environments we have the ability to develop our own attitude toward it -- for example to accept it or reject it even if we do not have the ability to alter it.

Trying is, of course, how humans express their free will in a positive sense. However, I should add that I think free will is also exemplified negatively when we check our actions -- restraining ourselves before they get the better of us.

owleye