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Do we have freewill?

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Thing is actual "free will" is a little scary because it it means WE (and nobody else) are responsible for our choices/actions.

FAR more attractive to foist off responsibility for our "poorer" choices on "powers we cannot perceive" so WE are off the hook... or even victims! (gasp)

Reality is that if there is a God *(I personally have faith) he/they ARE HOLDING US accountable like it or not. (ie: Free will)
 
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Guess it's all perspective, I think the notion that we don't have free will to be scarier than the idea that we're responsible for our actions.
 
nakedfrog said:
Guess it's all perspective, I think the notion that we don't have free will to be scarier than the idea that we're responsible for our actions.
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Depends .... if it's "all preordained" and all we are is "prisoners in chains" then what difference does it make what any of us do? (convenient the way MANY religious folks shirk responsibility for THEIR deplorable actions that way IN THEIR IMAGINATIONS)

This is a big part of WHY "Jesus wept" for humanity.

I reject that entire line of "reasoning" and counter with we are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT responsible for our choices AND for the results they bring to our lives. ("free will" makes choosing to do good MEAN something... without it we're all just slaves)


quote-i-reject-your-reality-and-substitute-my-own-adam-savage-25-97-27.jpg
 
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Law and Philsophy both may have partial foundations in using logic.

The results from the domains are very much different. One is far more reductionist than the other(law). One cares deeply about technicalities and their implications(philosophy). The other, puts asides rules all the time(law).

One example of the recognition of "will" is informed consent documents...a legal result borne out of doctor and hospital misconduct that ignored a person's "yes" or "no".
 
Captante said:
Depends .... if it's "all preordained" and all we are is "prisoners in chains" then what difference does it make what any of us do? (convenient the way MANY religious folks shirk responsibility for THEIR deplorable actions that way IN THEIR IMAGINATIONS)

This is a big part of WHY "Jesus wept" for humanity.

I reject that entire line of "reasoning" and counter with we are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT responsible for our choices AND for the results they bring to our lives. ("free will" makes choosing to do good MEAN something... without it we're all just slaves)
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I can't agree with that.

Just observing how much people's nature is determined by their environment (e.g. social class and ethnicity are clearly _massive_ factors in determining people's attitudes and culture, that's always been obvious to me), and also reading about neurological conditions and the effects they can have, though the physical deterministic effects they have on the brain (having had one such myself my entire life), it seems absurd to argue that we have complete 'free will'.

I mean, it seems to be overwhelmingly white, educated, affluent people with no neurological conditions who believe in complete free-will. Is that really coincidence?
 
Discussions in pop philsophy about free will usually wind up more of a expose of the arguer's/writer's background, biases, and the phenomena he has oberserved the most in his life.

The OP, now departed, temporarily or permanently of his own choice, clearly had religious trauma and actually did not provide anything cognizable about the specific actions behind "being a religious person of religion X".

The perception of will is borne out of the human capacity to think.

But it is true that there are mechanistic forces in the universe that can operate regardless of "thinking". Hormones(predisone certainly activated behavior in my body that did not ever happen to me before), heavy metals, etc can all affect the "thinking" of man.

Man is best describe as semi-pliable in mind. He is conforming to a certain set of habits, strongly influence by hormones, food, and whatever sacred axioms he holds, but can in isolation, think and decide freely up to a point. But dare contradict the sacred axioms(which need not be religion, it can even be politics, worship of a mode of thought like science, etc), and man will resist thinking and acting in contradiction to those deeply held axioms.

The other matter is the colloquial and non-legal English tends to influence the speaker by focusing on the nouns and then automatically drawing inferences and presumptions based on the nouns. This can manifest in statements "being good at math" rather than saying "good at calucating" or "good at doing the act of calucating". Math is the noun, and the English speaker pays no attention to the actions of actually doing math.

Free will is a thing(a noun), but it is a concept involving humans doing or not doing actions, physical or mental. It could be considered...a partial synonym of cognition.
 
Torn Mind said:
Man is best describe as semi-pliable in mind. He is conforming to a certain set of habits, strongly influence by hormones, food, and whatever sacred axioms he holds, but can in isolation, think and decide freely up to a point. But dare contradict the sacred axioms(which need not be religion, it can even be politics, worship of a mode of thought like science, etc), and man will resist thinking and acting in contradiction to those deeply held axioms.
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That just sounds like an egotist to me. You make it sound like it's inevitable.
 
[DHT]Osiris said:
That just sounds like an egotist to me. You make it sound like it's inevitable.
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Humans are free to think, act, etc. But they usually bend and conform towards certain forces and tendencies moreso than act in truly arbitrary and capricious manner. Lead poisoning can compromise one's "free will". He can still function to an extent, he's not dead, but moments of aggression or violence from someone poisoned by lead that is not completely "free".
Or someone with psychopathy wiring of the brain. He too has the capacity to think, but the whole wiring causes him to behave in a manner not quite in line with "normally wired" humans.

Basically, the whole discussion is trying to reconcile two simple concepts:
1. "This wiil/'is going to' happen"
2. "Person X may or may not choose to do something".

The concepts are the same, but figuring out how to reconcile the two results in piles of text.

Humans, being social animals, are particularly receptive to communication and following the actions of "cultural influencers". So while one single individual cannot automatically be said to carry a tendency, when they belong to certain groups, behavioral tendencies in those groups do manifest. In the realm of politics, people usually never break tendencies if they believe one side is unambiguously better. In terms of general cultural habits, certain things just seem to always manifest, such as an Asian's "tightwad" approach to spending.
Hormones? Food and sex drive actions up to the biggest of stages, and it's usually hard to say no to either.

In subjects where there are no stakes, humans become flexible.

I don't believe a single human has nothing "sacred". Something they're hold dear. Could something trivial. Could be some big cause.
 
Torn Mind said:
Discussions in pop philsophy about free will usually wind up more of a expose of the arguer's/writer's background, biases, and the phenomena he has oberserved the most in his life.
Click to expand...

It's almost as if people's background and experiences determine their views on the topic.
 
Torn Mind said:
Humans are free to think, act, etc. But they usually bend and conform towards certain forces and tendencies moreso than act in truly arbitrary and capricious manner. Lead poisoning can compromise one's "free will". He can still function to an extent, he's not dead, but moments of aggression or violence from someone poisoned by lead that is not completely "free".
Or someone with psychopathy wiring of the brain. He too has the capacity to think, but the whole wiring causes him to behave in a manner not quite in line with "normally wired" humans.

Basically, the whole discussion is trying to reconcile two simple concepts:
1. "This wiil/'is going to' happen"
2. "Person X may or may not choose to do something".

The concepts are the same, but figuring out how to reconcile the two results in piles of text.

Humans, being social animals, are particularly receptive to communication and following the actions of "cultural influencers". So while one single individual cannot automatically be said to carry a tendency, when they belong to certain groups, behavioral tendencies in those groups do manifest. In the realm of politics, people usually never break tendencies if they believe one side is unambiguously better. In terms of general cultural habits, certain things just seem to always manifest, such as an Asian's "tightwad" approach to spending.
Hormones? Food and sex drive actions up to the biggest of stages, and it's usually hard to say no to either.

In subjects where there are no stakes, humans become flexible.

I don't believe a single human has nothing "sacred". Something they're hold dear. Could something trivial. Could be some big cause.
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Isn't it easier to just say that humans have free will, but their will can be influenced by a myriad factors, both natural and unnatural, intentional and unintentional?
 
Torn Mind said:
Or someone with psychopathy wiring of the brain. He too has the capacity to think, but the whole wiring causes him to behave in a manner not quite in line with "normally wired" humans.
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But aren't those "normally wired" humans just as much subject to the effects of the wiring of their brains?

Why is there the idea that there's a majority of 'normal' humans whose actions and thoughts are somehow entirely independent of the wiring of their brains, and only a minority who are affected by that physical wiring?

That's what I don't understand, as it happens, about the concept of 'neurodivergence'. That seems a very fashionable concept these days, I constantly hear about it (there seems to be a steady procession of wealthy celebs announcing they are 'neurodivergent' based on some judgement that they have ADHD or autism). But aren't we _all_ affected by the physical structure of our brains?
 
pmv said:
But aren't those "normally wired" humans just as much subject to the effects of the wiring of their brains?

Why is there the idea that there's a majority of 'normal' humans whose actions and thoughts are somehow entirely independent of the wiring of their brains, and only a minority who are affected by that physical wiring?

That's what I don't understand, as it happens, about the concept of 'neurodivergence'. That seems a very fashionable concept these days, I constantly hear about it (there seems to be a steady procession of wealthy celebs announcing they are 'neurodivergent' based on some judgement that they have ADHD or autism). But aren't we _all_ affected by the physical structure of our brains?
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Imo the first step is to shed the idea of 'normal' entirely. There's a series of 7B humans on a behavioral scale wherein people in a certain given range of behaviors and thought can interact with other humans in a similar range. The roughly middle of that scale would be what we call 'normal' but that's a pretty stupid word to use in this scenario. I don't think the way most people I interact with think. Does that make me 'neurodivergent', does it make them fucking crazy, or do we accept that different people are at different spots on a very large scale and we just think about things differently, approach situations differently, and react differently from others?
 
[DHT]Osiris said:
Imo the first step is to shed the idea of 'normal' entirely. There's a series of 7B humans on a behavioral scale wherein people in a certain given range of behaviors and thought can interact with other humans in a similar range. The roughly middle of that scale would be what we call 'normal' but that's a pretty stupid word to use in this scenario. I don't think the way most people I interact with think. Does that make me 'neurodivergent', does it make them fucking crazy, or do we accept that different people are at different spots on a very large scale and we just think about things differently, approach situations differently, and react differently from others?
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There your go, well put...

I believe I encountered this: '"Normal" is a fixation concept, pure and simple. '

Aha! Looking that up I see it was in one of my favorite essays of all time, a short book by Henry Miller beautifully entitled, The Wisdom of the Heart. I have read it quite a few times, often when I'm having a tough time of it for whatever reason.

A google search on the quote there comes up with this snippet from the book:

fixation concept, pure and simple.' 'It is better, if we can,' he asserts, 'to stand alone and to feel quite normal about our abnormality ...
 
Torn Mind said:
I don't believe a single human has nothing "sacred". Something they're hold dear. Could something trivial. Could be some big cause.
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Well, that's a conceit in itself, and it's not really doing you any good. Some people are, at least at times, virtually completely untethered. Granted, people, so many people do have "bees in their bonnet." 😉 I suppose it works for most people, though.
 
Commodus said:
We do and we don't, I'd say.

In a sense, everything has been dictated by interactions that started with the Big Bang. There's nothing strictly stopping deviations, though, and we might not ever really know if our thoughts are changing things beyond the "script" that physics dictates.

Besides, from a philosophical standpoint we have to act as if there is free will. We know people aren't predestined to believe the things their parents did, or to pursue a certain career. Otherwise, we'd never try to live up to our potential or challenge outdated ways of thinking.
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You don't have to be that goddamned rational you know.
 
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