3 ms·

If you don't accept that you have free will, than nothing you write or say has any meaning.

• Saptarishi 5y ago
  To be fair, I too have ended up thinking that free will probably does not exist. Yet everyone else and I will always continue to behave and live as if it existed, that is my consolation.
• hanche 5y ago
  It may be possible to believe you don’t have free will, yet act like you do and to find meaning in life. After all, given how hard it is to even define “free will”, how can we know for sure whether we have it? Now recent research seems to indicate (note the weasel words) that we have less of this “free will” stuff than we like to think. Yet hopefully, if you dig a little deeper, we find something that qualifies as free will, even if we live in a deterministic world. Which we don,t quite; see quantum mechanics. But a free will based on QM seems no better. Who wants a “free will” based on randomness? Please forgive my ramblings. I may have been reading Daniel Dennett too much, most likely with too little understanding.
  • IncRnd 5y ago
    If you are capable of acting as if you have free will, that is the proof you have free will.
    • hanche 5y ago
      I certainly would like to think so, but the argument seems circular. These things are so hard to reason about!
• MichaelZuo 5y ago
  What someone says or writes could provide information useful for predicting the future. That by definition has meaning.
  • IncRnd 5y ago
    That's my point - that there is free will, otherwise no prediction has meaning.
    • MichaelZuo 5y ago
      That does not follow. Reduction in entropy generation surely has meaning, it has thermodynamic consequences, regardless of any ‘free will’ here or there.
      • IncRnd 5y ago
        Of course it follows. It is specious to look at entropic consequences, when you should look at the existent will being exercised to predict those consequences. You can't predict unless you have the will to perform a prediction. Having such a will to act, is free will. As another example - You are able to freely exercise your will to comment or not to comment.
        • MichaelZuo 5y ago
          ‘You can't predict unless you have the will to perform a prediction.’ I’m fairly certain fish can predict the course of future events, to a fairly high degree of accuracy, in relation to seasonal changes in water temp, food density, etc… e.g. spawning salmon
          • IncRnd 5y ago
            That's comparing apples and oranges. Perhaps, fish have free will, but this conversation is about human beings, where we have the internal laboratory apparatus required for introspection and determination. We can create hypothesis and tests, then inspect results. We are directly able to test, through choice, to prove that we have free will. It is foolish to compare yourself to a fish, though your ability to compare your mentality to that of a fish was your free choice made from your own free will.