Asklemmy

I don’t believe one can make decisions outside of their web of being.

Nope, I don't.

Doesn't really matter, though. We certainly have the illusion of free will, we behave as if it exists, so it doesn't actually matter in a practical sense.

It is fun to think about!

In my opinion humans are biological machines reacting to stimulus based on previous experience.

If we could theoretically perfectly map the brain and understand it, we could predict what a person would do in response to a specific stimulus.

At least that is how I have come to understand my existence.

Doesn't mean I am off the hook for my poor decisions either. I still have to make the decision, even if theoretically we already knew what I would do.

I have no choice but to believe in it.

The question is meaningless, the answer doesn't affect reality, unless you propose an external mind that is controlling or at least influencing our decisions.

There's no evidence for free will. Every physical process involved in the function of our bodies and brains has so far proven to be deterministic in every way we can verify. That doesn't mean you can't have an original thought though, it just means that any original thought you have was necessarily going to happen and couldn't possibly have happened any other way. It's fate.

Even if the universe is nondeterministic like quantum physics suggests you still don't have free will because your thoughts and feelings are still ruled by physical processes even when they are random.

But you don't need physics to dispute free will. Schopenhauer already said that you may do what you want. But you cannot will what you want. Einstein used that realisation to not take everything too seriously even when people act infuriating.

In a deterministic reality, where all things are due and subject to causation, there can be no free will. If we did not live in a causal reality, we'd never be able to make accurate predictions or models.

"Randomness" is not free will either. If you're not in complete control of your influences, then you can not be said to have free will. Randomness does nothing to help the argument for free will.

With that said. Regardless of the existence of free will, what does exists is your awareness of what it's like to be you. To be in the circumstances that currently govern your life. And in that awareness exists the boundless capacity for compassion. Once you understand that no one is in control of their lives, that all things are causal, it allows you to be less judgmental.

"If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff, he will not become angry. He will simply guide his boat around it.

But if he sees a person in the boat, he will shout at the other to steer clear. If the shout is not heard, and the boats collide, he will curse the other person.

Yet, if the boat were empty, he would not be angry."

— Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi)

I wrote a simple explanation of determinism in a blog post earlier this year (there's an audio version available as well.) https://mrfunkedude.wordpress.com/2024/12/03/following-the-strings/

As I hear it described, it doesn't even make logical sense. A thing is either random, or deterministic. People talk about decisions being motivated by something, but also somehow independent of all exterior things.

People will come back that that lets you off the hook for your misdeeds, but that's only the case if you believe in retribution for it's own sake. A version of incapacitation and rehabilitation could make sense against something as devoid of "free will" as a bridge or building, and deterrence only needs the target to be capable of strategy.

To answer the question a slightly different way, in light of the post text: How random the universe is will come down to fundamental physics. The simplest way of interpreting the current state of the art is that the universe is deterministic but branching.

Doesn't matter either way.

The way I see it, the brain is essentially a neural network that builds a model of the world through experience. It then uses this model to make predictions. Its primary function is to maintain homeostasis within the body, reacting to chemical signals like hunger, emotions, or pain. Our volition stems from the brain's effort to achieve this balance, using its world model as the foundation for action.

Free will is real and it's an illusion at the same time.

Our actions are reactions. And we are very limited in our execution of will by the most basic physical boundaries. For example I cannot fly, no matter how much I will it to be so.

We have free will to control the actions of the biological apparatus which is our body, to an extent, though even those are limited by circumstances and consequences.

Overall we have limited free will, or free will "lite"

It doesn't matter.

i have yet to see any evidence thatethere is anything that overcomes the deterministic nature of the universe. the rare bit of chaos we get from quantum mechanics is washed away by the law of large numbers.

Free will is based on the concept of the individual, a concept bounded by a separation already as arbitrary and illusory as a nation's border. It's pragmatic to pretend these things exist in your day to day life, but they don't mean anything to the universe.

I'm not sold on the whole universe being deterministic, but Robert Sapolsky has a book called Determined which has pretty much convinced me that we don't have any agency. He's a neuroscientist, and breaks down what goes in to our actions based on the immediate causes, our environment, our upbringing, our culture, and, in my opinion, doesn't really leave a place for agency to remain. I don't really understand his arguments well enough to articulate them here, but I think he's done some interviews on YouTube which I'm sure will cover the gist of it.

It's dangerous to tell people that they have no free will.

Those who do not want to think critically will just convince themselves that the world is falling apart and that they can't do anything about it because it's all predetermined any way.

Others take advantage of the idea of a predetermined future as a license to do whatever they please. Any terrible thing they do is not a problem to them because their actions were already predetermined, they couldn't help it because they were destined to do these things .... at least that is what they tell everyone.

I believe there is a middle ground ... our biology, our environment, our genetics and the universe as a whole runs like a mechanical clock with predetermined movements .... but we are provided with enough options at every movement or critical point to determine our future.

We will never be able to change how our universe works but we can choose how we can exist in that universe.

I don't think free will can be dismissed just because the framework that it runs on is deterministic.

Let's say you program a text editor. A computer runs the program, but the computer has no influence on what text the user is going to write.

I think that consciousness is a user like that. It runs on deterministic hardware but it's not necessarily deterministic due to that. It might be for other reasons, but the laws of physics isn't it, because physics doesn't prohibit free will from existing.

Consciousness is wildly complex. It's a self illusion and we really have no good idea about where decisions even come from.

If it is deterministic, it would have to involve every single atom in the universe that in one way or another have influenced the person. Wings of a butterfly and light from distant stars etc. Attempting to predict it would require a simulation of everything. That leads to other questions. If a simulation is a 1:1 replica of the real thing, which one is then real and what happens if we run it backwards, can we see what caused the big bang, etc.

So, even if this is about free will, the enquiry falls short on trying to figure out what even causes anything to happen at all.

If we are happy with accepting that the universe was caused by something before or outside the universe, then it's really easy to point in that direction and say that free will also comes from there - somewhere outside the deterministic physics.

Of course the actual universe and the laws of physics are really not separate as data and functions. The data itself contains the instructions. Any system that can contain itself that way is incomplete as proved by Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Truths do exist that can't be proven so perhaps the concept of free will is an example of such a thing, or maybe it's not. The point is that we can't rule it out, just because it exists in a deterministic system.

Personally I don't think it matters all that much. Similarly to how we can only ever experience things that exists inside of the universe,or see the light that hits our eye, we can also only ever hope to experience free will on the level of our own consciousness, even if we acknowledge that it is influenced by all kinds of other things from all levels from atoms to the big bang.

We are particles governed by physical laws, so no

I'm a compatiblist. I don't think a deterministic universe precludes free will. Of course there are reasons for everything we do. If free will was only the freedom to make bad or random decisions, what's the point? That's a lot of free but not a lot will.

No, we don't have free will. HOWEVER, I don't think that arguement will hold up in court.

I think we have free agency within various external constraints. Which means we can try to find ways to circumvent external constraints, while also understanding that, as the fictional Ian Malcolm Smith put it, just because we can do a thing doesn't mean we should do it.

Just based on my observations of my life, I seem to have the ability to choose to do or not do things, and that's good enough for me. Is my choice just part of the infinite universe's fixed progression through time and I would have done what I did regardless? Are there infinite parallel universes where parallel versions of me exist that have collectively made every choice I can possibly make? Don't care. I feel like I have free will and IMO that's what's most relevant to my life in this universe.

To add to this, I've noticed not only here but anywhere I ask this question there is a camp of people who immediately become defensive and say the question is pointless. In person it can lead to people getting very angry sometimes at the idea and that is odd to me. I don't really see how the question is pointless, and instead it seems to me like some people feel intimidated by it

You’re describing the free will vs predestination debate we had often in theology discussion. Ours never went anywhere, so I won’t be much help. I just wanted to put a name on it for you. Might help in your search.

If there is an unbroken chain of causality, that means that history has been written start to finish already, and my consciousness is just along for the ride. The thing is, my consciousness is locked to right now, which is a single point in this 4-D space, as are all the consciousnesses that I interact with because that’s exactly what right now is.

Until the day I interact with a consciousness that is experiencing a different point in 4-D space other than right now, it does not matter if free will truly exists because from my perspective and from all of my scientific testing so far (like deciding to pick my nose as I just did), evidence suggests that my consciousness is capable of making decisions. Even if those decisions are all a result of a deterministic path, my consciousness felt like it made them so it might as well have.

Of course given physics and materialism, sans metaphysics, free will is s myth. But the calculations are so difficult you may as well believe.

It is an impossible concept invented by humans. Free from what? Literally everything you do is because of things beyond your control. It isn't predestined, it just isn't up to you. The question is, at the end of the day, were you kind?