I will give £500 to anyone who can prove that we have free will

[Leveller]

Free will is often used as a trump card by religious people to explain why bad things happen, I intend to thoroughly quash this trump card.

Get going before the credit crunch really sinks in, I'm not adding any intrest to this bet.

[Jack_Sparrow]

Mankind must have free will, because we do not all act the same. Mankind is heterogeneous in its choices, actions, laws, religions, morals, ethics, etc. That shows we have free will.

[Morality Games]

Well, I don't believe in free will either, but for 500$ I will give it my best shot, and demonstrate the existence of enslaved will too.

'Will' refers to that aspect of the human mind which propels our activity and 'freedom' is the degree to which we are independent of the influence of other powers. So humans who exercise judgment and perform actions independent of other people's intentions have 'free will' and those whose activity is restrained by the authority of wills beyond their own have 'enslaved wills'.

So, do you pay with checks or pay-pal?

. . . just kidding of course. Keep your money.

[Rogue Cardinal]

Man totally has freewill. It's not even tied to religion. Men with religion and men without religion all have freewill.

You CAN do whatever you want. You are only limited by what you will do.

I suppose one could argue that the laws of man act as a deterrent and as such stop men from doing certain things, but it's only works for SOME people. And it doesn't diminish the fact that you COULD have broken the law should you have chosen to.

you are only limited by your mind and the restrictions you put on yourself.

[wyoguy]

I probably the most dogmatic theist on this site, and I've never once supported the idea of "free will". Want proof? Believe in Christ and accept Him as your savior. What? Can't do it? So much for free will.

[Leveller]

The assertion that we have free will because we lead different lives is highly missleading, and provably wrong.

Free will contains 2 concepts. Firstly 'will', "the faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions" (from dictionary.com), and 'free' "exempt from external authority, interference, restriction, etc., as a person or one's will, thought, choice, action, etc.; independent; unrestricted, able to do something at will; at liberty: free to choose. "

In essence, to have free will, you must be free to do what you want, when you want.

I make an assumption here, but I'm assuming you cannot fly (unassisted). As much as you may have the will to float above the ground, you cannot physicly do it, thus we have restricted will at best.

Furtheremore, we are products of our enviroment, our genetic makeup, and our upbringing. Depending on where you are born in the world, your wealth, oppertunity and liberty varies massivly, and do you have free will over you date and time of birth?

Do people born dissabled choose to be born so?

Our will and or freedom are at the mercy of so many factors over which we have no control, free will is, therefore, an illusion, a trick played by our concious self-awareness.

[Morality Games]

And it doesn't diminish the fact that you COULD have broken the law should you have chosen to.

The key word here, which you wisely highlighted, is 'could'. However, is 'could' a verbal illusion which reflects no truth about the actual state of things, or is it an authentic representation of the nature of reality? Namely, it is there truly capacity within the dynamic of people and their circumstances to make different decisions and perform various actions in the same situations, or is this capacity a deception built on top of a bad undestanding of metaphysics?

I probably the most dogmatic theist on this site, and I've never once supported the idea of "free will". Want proof? Believe in Christ and accept Him as your savior. What? Can't do it? So much for free will.

Other denominations of Christianity feel dependent on free will, as it makes people one-hundred percent responsible for their own spiritual well-being and frees God from all obligations that might be expected of a Creator by his creations.

I imagine you take the reverse position that a Creator doesn't owe anything to his creations by the nature of the relationship.

[Morality Games]

Quote by: Leveller The assertion that we have free will because we lead different lives is highly missleading, and provably wrong. Free will contains 2 concepts. Firstly 'will', "the faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions" (from dictionary.com), and 'free' "exempt from external authority, interference, restriction, etc., as a person or one's will, thought, choice, action, etc.; independent; unrestricted, able to do something at will; at liberty: free to choose. " In essence, to have free will, you must be free to do what you want, when you want. I make an assumption here, but I'm assuming you cannot fly (unassisted). As much as you may have the will to float above the ground, you cannot physicly do it, thus we have restricted will at best. Furtheremore, we are products of our enviroment, our genetic makeup, and our upbringing. Depending on where you are born in the world, your wealth, oppertunity and liberty varies massivly, and do you have free will over you date and time of birth? Do people born dissabled choose to be born so? Our will and or freedom are at the mercy of so many factors over which we have no control, free will is, therefore, an illusion, a trick played by our concious self-awareness.

The concept of free will you are up against is the classical formulation that there is some faculty of the mind which enables us to exercise absolute power of doing or not doing irregardless of the orientation of our being and the circumstances we find ourselves in.

However, freedom as a concept is fluid enough to be adapted and applied to the will in a deterministic universe in a number of ways, as I did in my first post -- after one acknowledges determinism, all disagreements about free will become semantic disagreements.

[Leveller]

If Semantic is enough to keep my cheque book closed, I'll milk it for all its worth

Very well, let us focus on the nature of human descision making. If you go into a restaurant, and on the menu are, say, beef burger, or chicken burger, you have a choice (I'l ignore the obvious point that you are already restricted by the fact that there are only 2 options on the menu, its not a very good restaurant), beef or chicken, naturally, you will pick the one you prefer. but why do you prefer the one you do? is it a concious descision? or is based on the chemichal reaction between your taste buds and the food? have you been influenced by a recent scare about beef? which picture looks more apetising? You have no control over which one you prefer, and unless your making a deliberate point to prove me wrong about free will, your going to choose the one that you like.

Free will is an illusion created by the situation in which we are presented with options, we will, unless overwise influenced, pick the option that is best for us, is this really a free descision? or is our conscious mind creating the appearence of a free choice over a calculated process of synapses firing and chemichal responses in the brain.

For a descission to be truly free, surely there must be NO outside influences or pre-desposed preferences AT ALL. this is rarely if ever true, and I for one cannot think of any examples.

Every choice made, every action taken has reasoning behind it, in all cases that I can think of, that reasoning is predetermined by the combination of genes, enviroment, upbringing culture, and a whole host of other uncontrolable factors.

[Tycoon]

What? Can't do it? So much for free will.

It's not that I can't do it it's that I don't want to. If there were a such thing as free will, this would be my decision not to let your false religion influence me.

[Tycoon]

Every choice made, every action taken has reasoning behind it, in all cases that I can think of, that reasoning is predetermined by the combination of genes, enviroment, upbringing culture, and a whole host of other uncontrolable factors.

Which were, in turn, predetermined by a number of other factors of the same type creating a chain of cause and effect leading all the way back to the Big Bang, and whatever came before it.

[wyoguy]

Quote by: Morality Games Other denominations of Christianity feel dependent on free will, as it makes people one-hundred percent responsible for their own spiritual well-being and frees God from all obligations that might be expected of a Creator by his creations. I imagine you take the reverse position that a Creator doesn't owe anything to his creations by the nature of the relationship.

Those denominations are known as Arminian, and no, I don't hold to their teachings. Whether one thinks their will to be free or captive doesn't relieve them from the responsibility of his actions, though. If the Arminians feel so responsible to God, why do they act so perversely? Most of what the world sees of Christianity is severly tainted by the heresy of Arminianism. Arminius argued that the Reformers would be led to a life of anti-nomianism (lawlessness) because they saw God as sovereign over all things, but Reformed Christians feel obliged towards obedience to God out of a spirit of thankfulness, not a fear of Divine retrobution. And no, I don't think that God owes us anything but judgement, and that rightly deserved. I think that it is only because of an intentionally placed loophole, called grace, that we aren't sharing an eternity in Hell right now.

[wyoguy]

Quote by: Tycoon It's not that I can't do it it's that I don't want to. If there were a such thing as free will, this would be my decision not to let your false religion influence me.

Dude, you couldn't do it if there was a gun to your head. Oh, you might consent verbally. You might even show up to church, but you just can't believe something that you don't believe. Period. That is why I am Christian. That is why you are whatever it is that you are. I never asked to be Christian. It's probably the last thing I wanted in my life, but here it is none-the-less. I even tried to fight against it, still do on occasion, but God's got me, and good too.

[Tycoon]

Dude, you couldn't do it if there was a gun to your head. Oh, you might consent verbally. You might even show up to church, but you just can't believe something that you don't believe. Period. That is why I am Christian. That is why you are whatever it is that you are. I never asked to be Christian. It's probably the last thing I wanted in my life, but here it is none-the-less. I even tried to fight against it, still do on occasion, but God's got me, and good too.

I think if I wanted to believe in God I could find some sort of rationalization to help myself along, and it wouldn't be that hard to blindly follow the teachings of Christianity.

[Morality Games]

Quote by: wyoguy Those denominations are known as Arminian, and no, I don't hold to their teachings. Whether one thinks their will to be free or captive doesn't relieve them from the responsibility of his actions, though. If the Arminians feel so responsible to God, why do they act so perversely? Most of what the world sees of Christianity is severly tainted by the heresy of Arminianism. Arminius argued that the Reformers would be led to a life of anti-nomianism (lawlessness) because they saw God as sovereign over all things, but Reformed Christians feel obliged towards obedience to God out of a spirit of thankfulness, not a fear of Divine retrobution. And no, I don't think that God owes us anything but judgement, and that rightly deserved. I think that it is only because of an intentionally placed loophole, called grace, that we aren't sharing an eternity in Hell right now.

Too bad humanity can't amount to anything higher. If we had just a slight streak of nobility, we would plead for God to annihiliate us from the existence we are completely unworthy of, but we don't even have the good grace to let ourselves pass away into nothingness -- now, if we really loved God, that is what we would do. That would be a true expression of our appreciation of his greatness. I think it would be a relief to him to see a human own up to its unworthiness to the point it would joyfully seek annihilation and stop wanting the grace it is competely undeserving of.

. . . unsophisticated of me to make such a comment, but that is the only way I knew how to respond to a belief like that.

[Rogue Cardinal]

Quote by: Morality Games The key word here, which you wisely highlighted, is 'could'. However, is 'could' a verbal illusion which reflects no truth about the actual state of things, or is it an authentic representation of the nature of reality? Namely, it is there truly capacity within the dynamic of people and their circumstances to make different decisions and perform various actions in the same situations, or is this capacity a deception built on top of a bad undestanding of metaphysics?

I think it was Kant that played with the notion of you COULD.....but you WON'T.

Again I assert that freewill is an individual thing. What are you willing to do and what is it that you need to do.

I suppose one could argue that if I didn't like my job I could quit it. BUt then I woudln't be raking in the money that I rake in. So while I COULD quit I won't. It's not that I can't. It's that I have personally placed an obstical in the way. The need for money. Each person has their own constructs that allow or disallow them to do something. We are all driven by desire.

I think you are as free as you want to be based upon your sets of needs. I think most of us possess a series of checks and balances that help us slove what it will be that we will do. FOr example if I wanted to kill someone.....the only thing that might stop me might be the fear of getting caught. Again I COULD kill that person. I might certainyl want to but the POSSIBLE, and likely consequence justifies to me not to kill that person. For others though....it's not an issue. Perhaps their desire to say make much needed money for doign a hit on someone justifies for them a need to engage in such an act that they normally wouldn't do, but do to whatever their particular circumstances are they do it any way. Want versus need, perhaps?

[ironeagle]

God Promised us free will, and that is what he gave us, free will means the ability to act in any manner in witch you see fit, decisions based on your ability , education, understanding, physical ability, and what other obstacles you come in contact with. It most certainly exists. I don't need five hundred Euro or pounds or whatever to prove it. It's pretty obvious. Additionaly you inability to process that God doesn't commit the crimes or sins and that in order for him to have a people that would believe in him willingly and choose their righteous path, they must also need free will otherwise they are not individuals, but robots. God keeps all of his promises. Additionaly God does not view a dead child as a tradgety, he views it as his child coming to his side to live in paradise. You are lucky God gave us the ability to die from our wounds, otherwise we would live in a world where peoples demented tourture can go on forever like is percieved in the bible of Hell. Is it possible a child dies at birth but because God has seem fit to call her back? No I doubt you've thought of that.

[Thanatos]

Quote by: Leveller The assertion that we have free will because we lead different lives is highly missleading, and provably wrong. Free will contains 2 concepts. Firstly 'will', "the faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions" (from dictionary.com), and 'free' "exempt from external authority, interference, restriction, etc., as a person or one's will, thought, choice, action, etc.; independent; unrestricted, able to do something at will; at liberty: free to choose. " In essence, to have free will, you must be free to do what you want, when you want. I make an assumption here, but I'm assuming you cannot fly (unassisted). As much as you may have the will to float above the ground, you cannot physicly do it, thus we have restricted will at best. Furtheremore, we are products of our enviroment, our genetic makeup, and our upbringing. Depending on where you are born in the world, your wealth, oppertunity and liberty varies massivly, and do you have free will over you date and time of birth? Do people born dissabled choose to be born so? Our will and or freedom are at the mercy of so many factors over which we have no control, free will is, therefore, an illusion, a trick played by our concious self-awareness.

Open your checkbook.

People make decisions to do things they do not want on another level all the time. There's a part of me what wants ice cream and another part that wants to lose 10 pounds; neither wins reliably. Perhaps if you knew where every atom in my brain was you could load it into a computer and predict whether my prefrontal cortex or my hindbrain would win this sort of debate for a given scenario, but you can't.

I present you with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The short explanation is that you cannot know the exact position and momentum of a particle at the same time, or know the exact frequency and wavelength of a wave at the same time. This is a very sturdy and well-tested principle of physics; God himself can't know unless perhaps the God in question can also draw a circle with pi equal to 3 or make 2+2=5.

Uncertainty principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So yes, we do have some measure of free will in either sense of the word.

[oades11]

Quote by: Leveller For a descission to be truly free, surely there must be NO outside influences or pre-desposed preferences AT ALL. this is rarely if ever true, and I for one cannot think of any examples. Every choice made, every action taken has reasoning behind it, in all cases that I can think of, that reasoning is predetermined by the combination of genes, enviroment, upbringing culture, and a whole host of other uncontrolable factors.

I don't think anyone is arguing that 'free will', as a singular idea, means that there are an unlimited number of alternate responses to any given action. So I agree that the term is disingenuous. You're defining 'free' and 'will' completely independent of one another and then putting those terms together, but 'free will' has a more specific definition. To be realistic, there is still some degree of freedom to our choices, otherwise we could never have progressed as a species and developed technology. When we first evolved, when there weren't cultural influences and environmental stimuli we're exposed to nowadays, the degree to which our choices were free was greater. Ultimately, one's current circumstances, i.e the effects of free will, are a cumulative result of choosing one thing over another, the exponential effect of following one particular timeline over another.

If you were to argue as if you were a Philosophical modernist, you'd flatly state that there is an underlying basis to the behavior of the most infintessimal particles, that which govern quarks in subatomic physics. However, until the divergence of quantum mechanics from classical physics can be explained so that there is some mathematical, predictable algorithm to matter and energy, you cannot confidently state that predeterminism is apodictic. There is seemingly random quantum behavior that some have postulated governs our complex brains as well, lending to the idea that free will does indeed exist.

[oades11]

Quote by: Thanatos Open your checkbook. People make decisions to do things they do not want on another level all the time. There's a part of me what wants ice cream and another part that wants to lose 10 pounds; neither wins reliably. Perhaps if you knew where every atom in my brain was you could load it into a computer and predict whether my prefrontal cortex or my hindbrain would win this sort of debate for a given scenario, but you can't. I present you with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The short explanation is that you cannot know the exact position and momentum of a particle at the same time, or know the exact frequency and wavelength of a wave at the same time. This is a very sturdy and well-tested principle of physics; God himself can't know unless perhaps the God in question can also draw a circle with pi equal to 3 or make 2+2=5. Uncertainty principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia So yes, we do have some measure of free will in either sense of the word.

Which is why free will is an illusion, according to the predeterminist's argument. If you could have knowledge of every single atom in the universe simultaneously and understand the fundamental algorithm that governs them, you could veritably say that you have no choice, the atoms are doing exactly what they were predetermined to do based on the guiding algorithm that governs them.

However, you then have issues like chaos theory and unpredictable quantum behavior, which suggests that the fundamental algorithm for subatomic behavior has some inherently random characteristics.