Free will

[Vindiesel]

Do you believe in it why or why not?

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Quantum mechanics supports it, however I'm starting to think there is a back door.

 

[Outdated]

A topic I feel very strongly about. Shamelessly stolen and converted from the Magna Carta:

Am I a human being with the power of conscious thought and the free will to act on that thought?
Or am I just a machine owned by the state? A machine that can be repaired and sent back to work or scrapped at someone else's discretion.

Try to subvert my will and you'll find an answer you don't like very much.

 

[Wolfnox]

Yes. There’s always a choice to be made.

 

[Vindiesel]

Depends on the the definition

I would like to believe it does exist but:

You did not make a conscious decision to be born

All the neurological, epigentics, genetics, hormones, biochemistry controls your narrative in life.

So from that point of view everything was predicated on your parents and so on so forth years, centuries to have the capacity to bring you to life.

So to say you have total free well I dont see how? or what is your definition?

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Good luck falsifying Quantum mechanics. the onus is now on you.

 

[LadyS]

Does Quantum Mechanics Rule Out Free Will?

 

[Kisa the tea]

Yes. some people choose to be mean and horrible.

 

[LadyS]

My views are constantly changing but where I'm currently at is a No, not in the same way we think about free will. In the same way people think that animals don't have free will, I think we are still constricted to each of our preprogrammed genetics coupled with learned behaviors and past trauma which govern a lot of our life decisions. So it's sort of an illusion or a partial free will.

How much do our genes restrict free will?

Scientists are revealing the extent to which our behaviour is influenced by our genes, calling into question our capacity for free will. But there is still scope for change.

theconversation.com

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Anti matter may negate free will. See Richard Feynman antimatter is time going backwards.in alternate universe. Or parallel.

 

[eg3210]

I definitely disagree with libertarian free will. The idea that I'm completely free to choose or believe in anything at any time unconstrained by anything around me.
It seems we are evidently controlled by a physical, chemical brain.
But I also see nothing that supports determinism.
So I believe in a limited free will. Where we can make our own choices, but from a limited range. I can chose to turn left or right, but I can't chose to believe the sky is yellow.

 

[selena]

Yes. There’s always a choice to be made.

Choosing to stay in a job because you like the work is very different from choosing to stay in a job because you need the money to purchase your basic needs. I mean yes, to an extent there's a choice to be made. But is it a real choice though, when choosing the other thing will yield a result that no reasonable person wants but that society has set up to be the guaranteed outcome of the supposed choice.

In most cases, most people will work with whatever card they've been dealt with. The free will or "personal responsibility" rhetoric is just something rich/privileged people came up with to shame groups of people they only know of as a concept but have no real personal connection with while they sit in a gold tower drinking afternoon tea or listening to Bach or doing some other bougie nonsense. The fish doesn't even know it's wet. Why are we accepting the premise the fish has laid out.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Personal opinion is not science. Free will is believing whatever you want.

 

[Shamar]

Depends on the the definition

I would like to believe it does exist but:

You did not make a conscious decision to be born

All the neurological, epigentics, genetics, hormones, biochemistry controls your narrative in life.

So from that point of view everything was predicated on your parents and so on so forth years, centuries to have the capacity to bring you to life.

So to say you have total free well I dont see how? or what is your definition?

If you fall off a cliff, you have the free will to decide to land gently. The fact that you go SPLAT at the bottom does not deny free will; you DID make the decision to land gently. Circumstances simply did not allow you to exercise the results of that free will.

 

[Dagan]

I hope free will exists as I think it does, otherwise I am going to be disappointed that I was basically preprogrammed to my middling existence instead of some way cooler options whatever author could have come up with.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Unless quantum mechanics the most successful theory in the history of science can be falsified which so far, the brightest of us has been unable to do in the last hundred years, free will exists. The alternative determinism means that if God made the universe, He left a back door. Sabina has a somewhat circular argument for super determinism. the only one thar makes sense is Richard's. time going backwards. with anti-matter would be a perfect back door
plus, the symmetry and the beauty is very compelling. also fits what I got during the stroke and many of the weird things that continue. making sense.

 

[Wolfnox]

Choosing to stay in a job because you like the work is very different from choosing to stay in a job because you need the money to purchase your basic needs. I mean yes, to an extent there's a choice to be made. But is it a real choice though, when choosing the other thing will yield a result that no reasonable person wants but that society has set up to be the guaranteed outcome of the supposed choice.

In most cases, most people will work with whatever card they've been dealt with. The free will or "personal responsibility" rhetoric is just something rich/privileged people came up with to shame groups of people they only know of as a concept but have no real personal connection with while they sit in a gold tower drinking afternoon tea or listening to Bach or doing some other bougie nonsense. The fish doesn't even know it's wet. Why are we accepting the premise the fish has laid out.

I’ve had this discussion before. If I told you that there were reasons for those other people to be in their positions in life. You would say it invalidates the truth of free will. For it was precedent to them being able to make decisions. Or by some unknown manipulation. Which would again invalidate free will. Yet, it is not a position in which you are chained. Having no knowledge of choice or there being one. More accurate to state is to say all men and women have the ability to choose of and for themselves what they will.
Free Will existed well before humans knowledge of good and evil. The ability of choice was always there. Though we knew not its truth.

 

[eg3210]

Choosing to stay in a job because you like the work is very different from choosing to stay in a job because you need the money to purchase your basic needs. I mean yes, to an extent there's a choice to be made. But is it a real choice though, when choosing the other thing will yield a result that no reasonable person wants but that society has set up to be the guaranteed outcome of the supposed choice.

In most cases, most people will work with whatever card they've been dealt with. The free will or "personal responsibility" rhetoric is just something rich/privileged people came up with to shame groups of people they only know of as a concept but have no real personal connection with while they sit in a gold tower drinking afternoon tea or listening to Bach or doing some other bougie nonsense. The fish doesn't even know it's wet. Why are we accepting the premise the fish has laid out.

I agree with this sentiment. Some people say it looks like one has free will, therefore any negative outcome was one's to choose. Then they use "Personal responsibility" instead of saying systemic discrimination.
But I think that conflates free will with other words like agency. To my understanding free will is the idea that you can make your own choices, not that you can necessarily effect the outcome of those decisions or are able to control what choices are given to you to make.

But that aside from that, I agree, free will or not, a choice you can't freely chose isn't really a choice.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

In physics free will is the opposite of determinism or in other words everything is predetermined. until quantum mechanics came along was in the realm of philosophy also was in conflict with religion as in God gave us free will. which in turn removed God from the equation for many scientists. after all being a murderer as pre-determined with a commandment do not kill would make no sense.

 

[eg3210]

In physics free will is the opposite of determinism or in other words everything is predetermined. until quantum mechanics came along was in the realm of philosophy also was in conflict with religion as in God gave us free will. which in turn removed God from the equation for many scientists. after all being a murderer as pre-determined with a commandment do not kill would make no sense.

Yeah modern versions of religion are messy with free will. People talk themselves into a circle trying to explain how they think someone with perfect foreknowledge and complete control made a universal that they would know would have these exact outcomes, that are not free to change, and yet each decision made within that universe is made freely.