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So your belief in free will comes from "It's going to turn out to come from something really weird"? That's not convincing either. I don't believe in free will

So your belief in free will comes from "It's going to turn out to come from something really weird"? That's not convincing either. I don't believe in free will, but I believe that there will always be the illusion because the computing needed to know anything before it happens is far too much, and if you knew, it would add another layer of things you'd need to compute, meaning you still wouldn't know your choice ahead of time. I agree that the infinite regress argument is not convincing - it proves nothing. I would point to science, physics, etc, which is much more factually supportive of it. Of course you can point out quarks, quantum computing, etc, but my argument is that the "randomness" is simply a system we have yet to understand. More importantly, you highlight something else - choice is not the same as free will. Yes, we all have choices we make every day. They seem to be our will because we don't understand how they were made down to the particles. Whether or not there is free will, there is always choice. So the question is, when is the lack of free will actually relevant? I find that a lot of people apply it in ways that don't make sense when it actually does offer insight in certain interesting areas such as ethics.

dwaltrip 9y ago
> More importantly, you highlight something else - choice is not the same as free will. Yes, we all have choices we make every day. They seem to be our will because we don't understand how they were made down to the particles. Whether or not there is free will, there is always choice. So the question is, when is the lack of free will actually relevant? Great point. This should be brought up more often. Many discussions of free will completely skip over this angle.
- nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
  I haven't studied the subject but on the odd day, it'd pique my curiosity. I've thought on these lines earlier but eventually I'd end it with "but the very act of choosing to make a choice" is in itself governed by the presence/absence of free-will. I have to admit I've not made progress from that point (neither have I made efforts to break through that barrier).
md224 9y ago
How is free will not the same as choice? A lack of free will is an inability to exert agency through choosing. Determinism removes the possibility of choosing. If you have no free will, you can't express yourself... nothing you do will be the product of your desires. Weren't you free to choose the words you wrote in your reply?
- adjkant 9y ago
  It's all about definition here I guess. I would say choice is the illusion itself. I chose the words I did, but the "how" is all an answer of essentially very complicated physics, chemistry, biology, and everything I've experienced in my life. >"If you have no free will, you can't express yourself... nothing you do will be the product of your desires." This is absolutely false. My desires are still a part of what drives me. I express myself every day in countless ways. The distinction is that I didn't have free will - it was always going to happen, in the way it happened. My consciousness does not understand how it came to that though, so it sees it as choices I made. It's just a bunch of molecules reacting to each other. That doesn't say anything of what the reactions mean or make what I do or feel any less important.
- wvlia5 9y ago
  You're being quite naive, not understanding what the issue is. Of course everything you do will be a product of what "you" "decide" to do. In that, completely naive & day-to-day, sense of the phrase, "you" do have "free will". But how did that "decision" come to be? Was there a cause for it to happen? If so, what caused it? If it was caused by deterministic laws of physics, then that doesn't sound much like "free will". If it was random, it doesn't sound like "free will" either. What is "free will" and how does it start electrochemical reactions in your brain which will result in a movement of your hand? What is "you", which posseses "free will"?
- pksadiq 9y ago
  > Weren't you free to choose the words you wrote in your reply? I was thinking the same. If we have no free will, what made us think that we don't have free will? Because we don't have free will, the thought on "not having free will" should probably the outcome of the past actions, which we didn't have choice on that either. Is it inevitable for many people to think so? Why not the rest? So, do we really don't have free will?
topmonk 9y ago
> I don't believe in free will, but I believe that there will always be the illusion because the computing needed to know anything before it happens is far too much, and if you knew, it would add another layer of things you'd need to compute, meaning you still wouldn't know your choice ahead of time. I think the illusion comes from the desire of a person to have power over their situation, which allows their instincts, especially those hidden from the person themselves, to have an effect which gives them an advantage evolutionally. With all other things equal, without ascribing free will, having one's mind have control over their life vs being controlled by external factors is one in the same. So there must be a natural built in preference for autonomy or there isn't enough space for hidden instincts to manifest themselves. One of the biggest examples of what I would call "hidden instincts" would be the fact that children grow up to be like their parents, including developing the very same vices that they hated when they were kids, such as domestic violence, drug abuse, abandonment of a child by a parent, etc. In order for these instincts to manifest, one must have control over oneself. (These instincts are possibly genetic, but a great survival tactic is to imitate your parents, since no matter how miserable their lives turned out, they were genetic winners in the fact they had you)
majewsky 9y ago
> I don't believe in free will, but I believe that there will always be the illusion because the computing needed to know anything before it happens is far too much, and if you knew, it would add another layer of things you'd need to compute, meaning you still wouldn't know your choice ahead of time. Interesting. I arrived at the same conclusion for myself, but used it as justification that I, basically, "might as well believe in free will". Sort of like a duck typing approach: If it walks like free will and talks like free will, I can just act as if it's free will.
- lmm 9y ago
  How would you tell? If you didn't have free will, what would you expect that to feel like? (I don't think free will is even a coherent concept, much less something that anyone has)

dwaltrip 9y ago

> More importantly, you highlight something else - choice is not the same as free will. Yes, we all have choices we make every day. They seem to be our will because we don't understand how they were made down to the particles. Whether or not there is free will, there is always choice. So the question is, when is the lack of free will actually relevant? Great point. This should be brought up more often. Many discussions of free will completely skip over this angle.

nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
I haven't studied the subject but on the odd day, it'd pique my curiosity. I've thought on these lines earlier but eventually I'd end it with "but the very act of choosing to make a choice" is in itself governed by the presence/absence of free-will. I have to admit I've not made progress from that point (neither have I made efforts to break through that barrier).

md224 9y ago

How is free will not the same as choice? A lack of free will is an inability to exert agency through choosing. Determinism removes the possibility of choosing. If you have no free will, you can't express yourself... nothing you do will be the product of your desires. Weren't you free to choose the words you wrote in your reply?

adjkant 9y ago
It's all about definition here I guess. I would say choice is the illusion itself. I chose the words I did, but the "how" is all an answer of essentially very complicated physics, chemistry, biology, and everything I've experienced in my life. >"If you have no free will, you can't express yourself... nothing you do will be the product of your desires." This is absolutely false. My desires are still a part of what drives me. I express myself every day in countless ways. The distinction is that I didn't have free will - it was always going to happen, in the way it happened. My consciousness does not understand how it came to that though, so it sees it as choices I made. It's just a bunch of molecules reacting to each other. That doesn't say anything of what the reactions mean or make what I do or feel any less important.
wvlia5 9y ago
You're being quite naive, not understanding what the issue is. Of course everything you do will be a product of what "you" "decide" to do. In that, completely naive & day-to-day, sense of the phrase, "you" do have "free will". But how did that "decision" come to be? Was there a cause for it to happen? If so, what caused it? If it was caused by deterministic laws of physics, then that doesn't sound much like "free will". If it was random, it doesn't sound like "free will" either. What is "free will" and how does it start electrochemical reactions in your brain which will result in a movement of your hand? What is "you", which posseses "free will"?
pksadiq 9y ago
> Weren't you free to choose the words you wrote in your reply? I was thinking the same. If we have no free will, what made us think that we don't have free will? Because we don't have free will, the thought on "not having free will" should probably the outcome of the past actions, which we didn't have choice on that either. Is it inevitable for many people to think so? Why not the rest? So, do we really don't have free will?

topmonk 9y ago

> I don't believe in free will, but I believe that there will always be the illusion because the computing needed to know anything before it happens is far too much, and if you knew, it would add another layer of things you'd need to compute, meaning you still wouldn't know your choice ahead of time. I think the illusion comes from the desire of a person to have power over their situation, which allows their instincts, especially those hidden from the person themselves, to have an effect which gives them an advantage evolutionally. With all other things equal, without ascribing free will, having one's mind have control over their life vs being controlled by external factors is one in the same. So there must be a natural built in preference for autonomy or there isn't enough space for hidden instincts to manifest themselves. One of the biggest examples of what I would call "hidden instincts" would be the fact that children grow up to be like their parents, including developing the very same vices that they hated when they were kids, such as domestic violence, drug abuse, abandonment of a child by a parent, etc. In order for these instincts to manifest, one must have control over oneself. (These instincts are possibly genetic, but a great survival tactic is to imitate your parents, since no matter how miserable their lives turned out, they were genetic winners in the fact they had you)

majewsky 9y ago

lmm 9y ago
How would you tell? If you didn't have free will, what would you expect that to feel like? (I don't think free will is even a coherent concept, much less something that anyone has)