Free will - Truth or Illusion?

salami1212 · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:05

Ive just finished watching Sam Harris's discussion on free will. I recommend it for anyone interested in this topic so ive linked it here for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g

Now to summarize, he is saying all our actions are predetermined by our past experiences. Every thought we have had, and are having right now, we were always going to have so therefore we cannot be blamed for our failures or praised for our success effectively.

Now I agree to an extent, but I cannot agree wholely. What he is implying, is that everything that has ever happened, was always going to happen and everything that will happen, is going to happen anyway. I can't agree with myself whether that is a good thing, or a bad thing?!

He talks about 2 murderers and I quote: As sickening as I find their behavior, I have to admit that if I were to trade places with one of these men, atom for atom, I would be him: There is no extra part of me that could decide to see the world differently or to resist the impulse to victimize other people.

I agree and im sure anyone else will agree. I am typing out this post because I was always going to type out this post from the day I was born, even from the day my mothers mother was born. From the day life came into being.

Yet I still disagree that we have zero free will. I have narrowed it down, to the notion that we MUST actually have some element of free will and I summarize it by this:

Our lives are already determined by our past unless we recognise this fact.

TheCenturion · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:08

Bruv, there ain't no ting as free wil, nah I'm saying?

our brain is literally just the movement hype of electrons, them tings are just moving round our flex and getting bare happy.

But yeah, literally everything is just about movement of electrons, free will is an illiusoing

d_brennen · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:08

Sam Harris is an idiot. But I was always going to say that

SubScape · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:18

TheCenturion said:
Bruv, there ain't no ting as free wil, nah I'm saying?

our brain is literally just the movement hype of electrons, them tings are just moving round our flex and getting bare happy.

But yeah, literally everything is just about movement of electrons, free will is an illiusoing

You're gonna laugh at this in the morning

ChroniC · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:20

There was a horizon doc on this recently, called Out of Control.

rz30 · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:20

Our past actions can contribute to the "Bondage of the will" so you could say there are varying degrees of freedom of the will. You also carry some of the burden from the actions of your parents and the generational line, might not seem fair but to a degree you do. So guilt can tie up the will.

It's an age old debate, predeterminism Vs free will and chance. The dual nature of this mystery, that nobody can fully understand. Personally i think most of these atheist philosophers/scientist people that publicly view their opinions like Dawkins are full of hot air.

Castiel · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:22

d_brennen said:
Sam Harris is an idiot. But I was always going to say that

Lol.

We have free will, however environmental and emotional intereference can limit our ability to fully explore it.

Rroff · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:22

Regardless of whether we have any degree of free will or not for the most part people go about their day to day lives carrying out actions based 100% on cause and effect.

Even the act of stopping to consciously analyse a choice would be due to a longer chain of cause and affect leading us to make the decision to actually think about a choice before choosing what to do and our choice would be based on weighing up past experience/knowledge with a bias based on what we have experienced - even deciding to arbitarily make an arbitary decision is based on realising we don't have (atleast for the most part) free will.

Sankari · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:27

Morality is meaningless in the absence of autonomy. If we have no free will, how can criminals be held accountable for their crimes?

topdog@OC · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:35

I tend to agree that the brain is just a nature-made machine and not a true free-will conscience.

So how can criminals be held accountable? I'd say because we have drawn a line that shan't be crossed, if someone crosses it involuntarily or not, then they've exceeded some level of tolerance determined elsewhere that doesn't care if they had free will or not.

Morality and free will are just the outputs of an algorithm with the inputs being the data inherent and accumulated in the brain.

D.P. · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:42

salami1212 said:
Ive just finished watching Sam Harris's discussion on free will. I recommend it for anyone interested in this topic so ive linked it here for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g

Now to summarize, he is saying all our actions are predetermined by our past experiences. Every thought we have had, and are having right now, we were always going to have so therefore we cannot be blamed for our failures or praised for our success effectively.

Now I agree to an extent, but I cannot agree wholely. What he is implying, is that everything that has ever happened, was always going to happen and everything that will happen, is going to happen anyway. I can't agree with myself whether that is a good thing, or a bad thing?!

He talks about 2 murderers and I quote: As sickening as I find their behavior, I have to admit that if I were to trade places with one of these men, atom for atom, I would be him: There is no extra part of me that could decide to see the world differently or to resist the impulse to victimize other people.

I agree and im sure anyone else will agree. I am typing out this post because I was always going to type out this post from the day I was born, even from the day my mothers mother was born. From the day life came into being.

Yet I still disagree that we have zero free will. I have narrowed it down, to the notion that we MUST actually have some element of free will and I summarize it by this:

Our lives are already determined by our past unless we recognise this fact.

Well, what if your past actions resulted in you recognizing that you life is determined by past actions, thus you still don't have free will.

D.P. · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:53

Evangelion said:
Morality is meaningless in the absence of autonomy. If we have no free will, how can criminals be held accountable for their crimes?

Criminals are prosecuted not as a form of punishment but as form of behavoural correction, and also to prevent reoccurrence of the criminal behavior.

D.P. · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:55

Castiel said:
Lol.

We have free will, however environmental and emotional intereference can limit our ability to fully explore it.

How do you know we have free will? I know of no substantive proof, while proof that we have no free will is fairly prevalent and a implicit effect of the physical universe we reside in.

arekgreenman888 · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:55

Truth - i have a choice either to fly my kite tomorrow or go cycling... Its a tough choice but someone got to do it.

My free will tells me to go to park and fly as there are hot girls there in tight skirts that make me go oh Thanks God for my free will.

Zefan · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:56

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18338378

arc@css · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:56

arekgreenman888 said:
Truth - i have a choice either to fly my kite tomorrow or go cycling... Its a tough choice but someone got to do it.

Fly your kite.

topdog@OC · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:56

D.P. said:
Criminals are prosecuted not as a form of punishment but as form of behavoural correction, and also to prevent reoccurrence of the criminal behavior.

Yep, no different really to how we handle a misbehaving computer.

If you can't correct or replace the defect, then you pull the plug. You don't just accept that since it's not the machine's fault, to leave it that way (unless the fault is within a tolerance level).

rz30 · 31 Mar 2012 at 02:57

D.P. said:
Criminals are prosecuted not as a form of punishment but as form of behavoural correction, and also to prevent reoccurrence of the criminal behavior.

I disagree, depends on the country, in this country it's a bit of both, other countries like norway and sweden it's very much more correctional, countries like north korea/china it's more based on punishment. What about death row?

D.P. · 31 Mar 2012 at 03:34

rz30 said:
I disagree, depends on the country, in this country it's a bit of both, other countries like norway and sweden it's very much more correctional, countries like north korea/china it's more based on punishment. What about death row?

Well I'm not a supporter of capital punshmet but in therey it as several effects, such as prevent a serious criminal recommitting if there was no chance for behavioral correction. It may also make potential murders etc think twice.

But anyway, te factht we lock up criminals doesn't mean there is free will.

You also cannot escape the fact that a majority of criminals had some kind of pre sour socio-economic factors that contributed to future criminal behaviors. Other factors are things like psychological and psychiatric issues, neurophysiological issues, etc.

Sankari · 31 Mar 2012 at 03:37

topdog@OC said:
I tend to agree that the brain is just a nature-made machine and not a true free-will conscience.

You are mixing terms horribly here. Is anyone claiming the brain is a conscience? I thought we all understood that the brain is a major organ of the human body, not 'a conscience.'

Yes, the brain is nature-made. How does this preclude free will? No way that I can see.

So how can criminals be held accountable? I'd say because we have drawn a line that shan't be crossed, if someone crosses it involuntarily or not, then they've exceeded some level of tolerance determined elsewhere that doesn't care if they had free will or not.

You haven't provided a moral basis for punishing a person who did something only because they had no freedom to do anything else. Saying 'we've drawn a line' does nothing to address this point. It merely begs additional questions.

Morality and free will are just the outputs of an algorithm with the inputs being the data inherent and accumulated in the brain.

Word count: 23. Meaningful content: 0.

D.P. said:
Criminals are prosecuted not as a form of punishment but as form of behavoural correction, and also to prevent reoccurrence of the criminal behavior.

Actually they are prosecuted for both reasons. How does behaviour correction works? Reward and deterrent. What is the deterrent in this case? A punishment. That's the whole point.

Sometimes that punishment takes the form of a fine. Sometimes it's community service. Sometimes it's incarceration. In extreme cases it's death, which is arguably not a deterrent but does enjoy a 100% success rate against recidivism.