10 replies to this topic

[rob86]

Are we humans unique in that we have true free will and total control over our lives? In the words of Appius Claudius, "Every man is the smith of his own fortune". The obvious answer is yes, as we make choices all the time. What to eat, what to wear. We choose our friends, we choose our words. We have the ability to think, rationalize and reason to make decisions that effect our life on every scale.

...or do we?

Perhaps we are living in a pseudo reality, where we only believe we are in control of our bodies and our thoughts.

All species adapt to their environment to survive, humans are no exception. We're the most intelligent species on the planet, therefore our adaptation skills must be high, much different than other animals, as we are so incredibly different in other ways. There are so many instances of environment influencing a persons behavior thoughts and opinions. Just the culture in a country where a person lives is enough to cause drastic changes in a persons opinion of almost everything. The home they are raised in, the people they grew up with. We're always adapting to our environment psychologically whether we realize it or not.

Let's think for a minute -- imagine a food you really like. Does a person really like the food, or has our brain just evolved to make sense of our taste buds having what our body feels is positive stimuli. There is no doubt our brains are amazing organs -- but that doesn't mean we necessarily have free will.

Another very simple example is to think of emotions. How many people get violent and uncontrollable when angry? How many people feel the need for suicide because they're depressed? Lots. Many people know what it's like to 'lose control'. What if being calm, cool and "in control" and making decisions is just the same thing as not being in control, it's just more pleasant so we think it is.

Could everything we say, everything we do, or think, believe, like be completely controlled by our brains, just an organ in our body? I think most people would accept the theory that computer artificial intelligence could ever achieve free will and be able to choose things without having some logical reason for choosing things. Imagine - could we just be highly intelligent super computers and not realize it? It's incredible how computer-like our brains turned out to be in research.

Animals such as dogs are much more simple creatures than a human being, but we're all living animals on the same planet, and we're all remarkably similar. Anyone who's ever trained a dog knows that their behavior is influenced by food. When a dog obeys a trained command it wants a reward (food) or fears punishment. Assuming the animal understands, when it disobeys the command, its body doesn't desire the food enough. It's calculating in it's brain the probability that the action will result in something good or something bad. Does a dog actually think about this or does it just happen ? It's pretty well accepted that dogs don't actually have intelligent thoughts. I'd love to think my dog understands my emotions, but I don't think this is true. Perhaps humans are te same way.


Creativity::: I ask myself and everyone a question, could it be possible that humans could achieve such amazing things, all the inventions and art, and music, if we were just robot-like beings? It's hard to believe that we could do such incredible and creative things if we weren't somehow special and inimitable -- but is it possible? Programmers have made many things where computers can perform surprisingly human like actions. Sure they are pre-programmed to do complex things.. but maybe we are too, we're just exponentially more sophisticated than anything we've designed so far. I don't believe we're pre-programmed at birth, I think it's possible our brain sort of programs itself every day and our experiences influence every aspect of our lives more than we could ever know.

There's lots and lots to say on the subject and this post is no where near a complete idea, but I'll leave it here since I don't want to spend hours rambling away. Just think about the possibility that everything in our lives is worked out in our brain and we only think we're making our own decisions. I don't know if we have free will or not, it's just an interesting thing to think about.

[Indou]

Wow, that's a big post you got there. Kudos ;D Anyway. A friend of mine liked to ask "how do you know?" And he would use the example of a microwave. "how do you know how to use it? How do you know you know?" >>' Annoying. We know because we learned. If we hadn't, we wouldn't know. But then, if someone met a microwave for the first time in their lives without instruction, they would attempt to at least work out what it was. Tools, creating and using, is what gave us Humans our edge over other animals. And when you think about it, swords. Look back in time, where did the universal idea for a sharpened piece of metal come from? Japanese made the Katana. No one else did. But swords were definately made in different designs. And it wasn't like they talked to each other. So maybe it was pre-programmed into our minds. The tools to kill.

I think, choice is limited to the time and place that you are in. But it is all connected somehow in the basic coding of our brains. I dunno. xD Did I choose to come here? or did someone else choose for me? I wouldn't have chosen to come here on my own. >_<

[truefusion]

rob86, on Jul 14 2009, 12:56 AM, said:

Just think about the possibility that everything in our lives is worked out in our brain and we only think we're making our own decisions.

For a second there i was starting to think (think—how ironic) you wouldn't provide a "theory" or "idea." But since you're interested in confusing life, let's make things a bit more interesting (confusing) with this quote of yours. Do you really think that we're the ones doing the thinking, thinking that we're the ones making our own decisions, because we like to believe we're in control? You sure it's not our own minds having us think that we are in control, making us like that feeling? What about this entire post of yours? Were you really the one that decided to write this? Why would your mind allow you (if you at all exist, of course) to write about something that could jeopardize its plans for you? Or is this all part of your mind's schemes, to give you the impression that you're on to something so that it can have less things to worry about? Perhaps my mind is having me write all of this out just to foil your mind's plans.

Let's go to the extreme and say we don't exist, only our minds do. Would you say that your mind is you, therefore you exist? No, that would be contrary to this quote of yours. For it could be argued that we think, therefore we exist, but your statement doesn't allow us to think. It is impossible to perceive without a perceiver, but even so, in the scenario you provide for us, we don't perceive. But if we don't exist, then it follows from your statement that only our brains do. So "we" is "our brain." But does this form a paradox? And what if we assert that even "our" brains don't have free will since they would in turn be restricted to physical (chemical) processes? That "our" brain, in turn, does not have free will of its own, but rather it is the chemical processes that are causing it to function. So then what causes these to function or act "on their own"? Indeed, in a purely physical world, how can anything start moving on their own?

rob86, on Jul 14 2009, 12:56 AM, said:

It's incredible how computer-like our brains turned out to be in research.

It's really the other way around.

[Gazeekoo]

While reading stuff like this, my mind goes "whatwhatwhatwhat" all the time.

Maybe it's just trying to distract me so that I don't figure out that all my actions are predetermined and not really my own. Whatever 'my own' means.

Now I have never really been comfortable with the idea of free will.
What exactly is free will?
Does not having free will mean that I want to do something, yet 'coz of some reason or the other, I can't?
If so, then humans definitely have free-will. In general. Specially kids.

Or do you mean that we don't have freewill in the sense that any decision we make is made by a "higher force" and we only have the illusion of making that decision...
Now that needs a little thought.
Do we, as humans follow a set of rules, on the basis of which we make any decision? I believe we do. And I think those rules are different for every individual.
So can a person's reaction or action be pre-determined? um, given enough information, I believe so.
But does that mean that he doesn't have freewill? Nope. It simply means we can guess what his will er, wills him on to do.

Or, to consider it in terms of what you say, how a person adapts to his environment, is nothing but free-will.


Most people try to equate freewill with randomness. And atleast according to me, they are not the same. I think that no one in the world is capable of randomness. Even if someone does something totally unlikely and random, like maybe kick random passerbys (passersby?) in the crotch, she would have a valid and justifiable reason for it in her head. Even if she does it to act like she is being random.
But that does not mean she doesn't have freewill. She just exercised it. Along with that leg of hers...

This is more along the lines which Asimov wrote about, and yes, it is more confusing than a maze full of monkeys.

[kobra500]

Ah I watched a great video on the subject, the fact remains that you have a choice what to do in any situation, but think about it, don't you think that choice is fixed, based on circumstance, in the same circumstances, you would always make the same choice, this means that the events leading up to the choice were to happen again after you had say amnesia about the first time, I don't think you would move logically to a different choice, the choice you make is rooted in logic, and the way you thing, coupled with events and circumstances in your life, but these are fixed in time providing that a time machine is never invented, lf course if one was invented in the future, the events that have taken place would have already taken that into consideration.

Free will just means that you get to choose what you do, but due to the way our minds work the choices we make are often thought about more, but it really isn't that different from how animals decide what to do, its similar to instinct, but you are more involved in the process. of course if you were to go back you may choose differently but no one gets that chance, do we.

I suppose the choices we make are rooted alot, similar to animals in the way we evolved, being quite social creatures in nature means we will choose to work together much of the time, due to the foods that were not readily avaliable we choose chocolate over vegetables, the part where free will comes in is we may choose vegetables because they are better for us, but before being fully cognitive we would not. So I suppose you could say that is evidence of free will, when you choose Carrots over chocolate.

Edited by kobra500, 15 July 2009 - 10:46 AM.

[Baniboy]

Well, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but free will is an illusion. Yes it is!

When you're deciding something and you have multiple choices, we pick the one that is more profitable for you. The chemicals in your brain cause this. Here's an example:
(no offence to anyone who likes coca cola)
Bob is a happy man. One day Bob went to his local market to buy some refreshments, he saw the drinks section and headed there. Now Bob had to decide if he wanted to buy Pepsi or Coca Cola. From his earlier experience, Bob new he liked pepsi more than cola. Chemicals in Bob's brain making Bob to choose Pepsi were stronger than the ones that were making him to choose Coca Cola. This is the illusion of free will, where we think we actually decide between mutiple choices. Now let's say Bob wanted to prove himself that he had "free will", he chose to buy Cola, and it tasted like crap(). What happened here? Well, the chemicals that caused Bob to prove himself he had free will were stronger than the ones that just wanted to taste something good. So the decisions you make depend on your goals, another example:

Bob liked whiskey more than tequila, but his wife could tell from the smell if he had been drinking. So that night at the bar, Bob decided to go with tequila because it didn't smell as strong in his breath as whiskey did.

If you could read through my stupid examples, you see why I call it an illusion.

[truefusion]

Baniboy, on Jul 15 2009, 08:02 AM, said:

If you could read through my stupid examples, you see why I call it an illusion.

The examples don't prove loss of free will, especially when you gave the example of Bob deliberately picking the soda he doesn't like over the one he does. In other words, temptation != loss of free will; likewise ignorance != free will. You were on the right track, however, when you mentioned or alluded to the processes of the brain being chemical processes, but the examples weren't in support of it. But you did bring up another topic within the examples themselves: that food companies would (and i know they do) go out of their way to mess around with your brain just so you can become addicted or attracted to their products.

[kleong]

Free will? There is no such things as free will. Human have the honor to choose the life they want to lead. Nah. It is circumstances that make them what they are. If there is a very good point about human, it is the ability to adapt and adopt to the new environment / circumstances.

[truefusion]

kleong, on Jul 31 2009, 01:01 PM, said:

Free will? There is no such things as free will. Human have the honor to choose the life they want to lead. Nah. It is circumstances that make them what they are. If there is a very good point about human, it is the ability to adapt and adopt to the new environment / circumstances.

You forgot to mention that the ability to adapt or adopt to different environments implies free will. Anyway, your statement seems to be assuming that the person will always be met with one choice at a time in life and that perhaps denying any choices is futile.

[anwiii]

very interesting topic. after reading the first post, i was going to touch on the arguement similar to truefusion(god forbid we argue so much because we think alike). but specifically, i was going to try and define free will and then argue against it...or at least argue on more possibilities other than free will.

free will to me are choices and actions that are not based on any controlling factors

we can say any choice or action we make is free will...but is it really? what about how we are raised. what about peer pressure. what about society in regards to billboards, commercials, movies and t.v. shows, etc... what about friends and family and how we decide how to act in front of them? everything we know DICTATES what our choices will be and how we will act. ignorance. what we DONT know may cause us to make choices where otherwise we wouldn't.

tricky subject here. i'm sorta a deep person and i don't really believe there is free will. "free will" will always be dictated by something or somebody or past experiences.

truefusion had a very good point about free will. what if our thoughts were being controlled by some other entity. how would you or i know differently? BUT! even though our thoughts are controlled, does that mean our muscle movements are controlled? people have suicidal thoughts all the time. do the thoughts alone dictate the action?

well... i personally believe in free will. i believe people can do anything they put their mind to. i don't believe our mind or brain is controlled by any energy that is greater than our own selves in full. i believe we all have a unique purpose in life. i also believe we stray from that purpose BECAUSE we have free will. we also have the ability to learn from our mistakes and stray back on course within our unique purpose.

because we all have a unique purpose, i do believe in enrgies or a higher power guiding us that will NOT dictate what we choose willingly....guide, yes....control, no. free will is not bound by any controlling influences.

i do also believe there are LOTS of controlling influences in life that may seem there is no such thing as free will.

now the question is tricky because it stated two questions in one. "do humans have free will" and "do humans have total control of their own lives". tricky tricky tricky. yes, we have free will in certain instances. total control of our own lives? no...because there will always be outside influences.

this question reminds me of that movie with morgan freeman and jim carey. there was free will issues in that movie. can you make someone love you? not in that movie.....but you can in real life by portraying yourself as someone your not....and being fake. yea yea yea...but then people would question if that love was really real when someone loved only an image that someone else created.

hmmm free will. yes, i can put a gun to my head and pull the trigger before my real time on this earth is up. not any god would be able to stop me....but i would have to relive my whole life again in another lifetime to learn what i need to learn for my soul to grow.(that's arguable too i know)

damn if this subject didn't make me think here....let me get back to ya