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How about the argument that you have free will to believe in whatever you want. You have the free will to make an opinion about free will. I think some argue that free will is like freedom of choice. Some say that you may be restricted in choice due to outside forces like laws and ethics but you have the freedom in your mind to believe and think however you want without any repercussions. In that sense the argument is that your free will is free from reality, laws of physics, causality and basically everything. If you have a thought, it is an original one that no one can take from you. You can not get in trouble for your thoughts if they are just that. You have the ability to think up anything you want and no one can affect how you think or what you think. That is a tough argument to refute unless you say that someone will believe in something or have a thought put in their head due to an external stimuli. Example, I wouldn't have thought about free will right now unless someone brought it up. It was not a free thought instead it was a forced one. The rebuttle would be that my opinion is free (the argument is circular and frustrating). I agree with you though, I believe that there is no free will. People are drawn to certain things through their biological makeup and are predisposed to doing certain activities. You look at a person with down syndrome, does that person have the free will to do what he or she wants? No. He/she does not have the ability to have the thoughts that normal people have, this is why they have to be taken care of constantly and always watched. They are prisoners in their own body and do not have the free will to change that. Now, the argument against that is that regardless of any physical and mental limitations, that person with down syndrome still has their own thoughts and that is through their own free will. I know this is a lot but I have been waiting for someone, anyone to discuss this topic. I appreciate your comment and thusly letting me vent.
Well, we are free to do what we want, of course, but we are not free to WANT what we want. I (whatever "I" in this would even mean is not really clear) don't really have a choice as to what thoughts, needs or wants arise in my mind. For example, I might have the illusion that I somehow choose to write the word "Santa Claus" here, but given the physical state of my brain and the rest of the universe at the precise moment I wrote, it was not possible to be otherwise. Besides, if you could hook me to a brain scanner to see what was going on in my brain at the moment of my "decision" you would see that the decision was actually made long before I became consciously aware of it. Your example of people with Down syndrome is a good one, and there's really no difference between a Down patient and the rest of us: we are ALL prisoners in our own bodies, our physical states. But actually of course, there is no prisoner - we ARE our bodies.
You had the choice to make whatever argument you wanted. You could have argued it in any way you wanted. You could have used any words you wanted. You chose those words to form your argument in the way you wanted to form it because that is how you wanted to do it. Your last argument is the one that works the best. Your body makes decisions before you even realize it. This is science. Hard to refute science. Could one argue though, that your body has an infinite amount of options to choose when making a decision but your body chooses just one. The body freely chose what it wanted to do. If there is a fire in your house you have an infinite amount of options, some right and some wrong. Your body will commit to a decision during that period because it is what it freely chose to do. If you chose to go out through the door vs going out through the window is up to you. Both get you the same result; getting away from the fire, but both are possible options that your body freely chooses. I hope that makes sense.
Actually, Harris would argue that you don't have an infinite number of choices...although an infinite number may theoretically exist. You're mentally "accessible" choices would be different than mine and might to a large extent be influenced by every moment of your life up to that point when you act and the only way we would share the exact same "options" are if we shared identical genetics, identical life experiences and identical situations.
The argument here is that "free will" is an illusion. There is a biological basis for behavior, all behavior, and it can be explained in biological terms. It is not some metaphysical state or a soul that acts independent of our brain. That contrasts this idea of "free will" that asserts that we all have complete discretion over what we do. And if our decisions are in fact being made, literally before we become conscious of them, then how does that support the notion of choice.
Your body doesn't freely choose anything. Your body responds to a set of impulses. Many of those choices/decisions are determined at the unconscious level, meaning they never even cross our conscious mind. And what decisions you do make consciously will be heavily, if not totally, influenced by all the neural connections in your brain.
So a person, who because of conditioning, genetics, and past experiences reacts calmly under stressful situations really has a whole different set of "real" choices, than someone who doesn't...it isn't a choice for one person to panic and other not to, even if it appears that way. The calmer person doesn't choose not to panic because he can.
It doesn't mean that there aren't an infinite number of possibilities in the universe...just that for realistic purposes your personal choice is very limited and probably absolutely determined by your brain and how it is wired along with the rest of your physiology which is nothing more than your genes, conditioning and experiences all working on you.
In response to your third paragraph, that the body does not freely choose to do things. Imagine this, you have the option to either walk through a door or hop out of a window. The door leads outside and as well as the window and leaving through the window would cause no injury what so ever. You are the same distance from the door as you are from the window. In this particular instance leaving out the door and hopping out the window would take the exact same amount of effort/energy. You chose to leave through the door...why? I guess you could argue that it is common to leave through the door and that prior learning have made the body accustomed to leaving through doors. The body would completely ignore the fact that there was another option besides the door. Am I right?
As much as I agree with you, and I do. I 100% agree to the fact that there is no free will, not even an illusion of one. We are predisposed to doing certain things; essentially what your argument is. The one argument for free will that I can't seem to argue against is this. You have the free will to believe or not to believe in free will...how do you argue that? . You freely chose to believe the fact there is no free will. Do you see what I mean?
Justin wrote: "In response to your third paragraph, that the body does not freely choose to do things. Imagine this, you have the option to either walk through a door or hop out of a window. The door leads outsid..."
Whether you choose the door or window or neither could be influenced by many things...first of all whether you knew that both were safe choices, two, your state of mind, your confidence in your ability to make it through the window as opposed to the door...which seemed like a safer or more logical exit for you based on your mindset. Someone who is hysterical may not be able to "think" period. And even if you could think, the option you choose would be unique to your character, your personality, your thought processes and ultimately you...and what are you if not a sum of the parts.
Actually, you don't necessarily have the free will to believe or not believe in free will and therein lies the illusion...it really feels like a choice...yet your ability to even entertain the idea that free will does not exist first requires that the idea has been introduced to you at a time in your life when you are open to the idea.
For example, I didn't consciously choose to like Sam Harris' ideas about free will any more than I chose to hate coffee and like tea. I don't choose to like coffee...I just don't. I can choose not to drink coffee...but is that really a choice? Likewise I can choose to drink tea instead of coffee...but again, is that free will? I believe what he says is true because the argument made against free will is consistent with things I have already accepted as true based on my experiences, my personality, my mindset and if you get down tot he nitty-gritty, even my genetics.
I am not sure if you have ever read Brave New World. But the premise is that we create a perfect society by first manipulating genes and the gestation period, next babies/children go through a strict conditioning so that they not only accept their station in life...they don't seek to change or question it. They are content with what they have, not because other choices don't exist, but because they have been programmed and conditioned to find certain choices desirable over others. It is interesting to see a book written so long ago, suggest the very thing that Harris suggests, without the intimate understanding of the brain to back it up or even addressing free will specifically, yet still making the observation.
Think about this, technically, a dog "makes" choices too. They can "choose" to chew up your shoe when you leave or not...does that mean they have free will? It is really hard to think that what makes us special is some firing of neurons. We're animals...just ones with bigger, more complex brains.
I'll have to read that book, it sounds interesting.
I agree with everything you stated though. I got into my career because I chose to pick that path, but did I really pick it or did it pick me? My father is in the same industry as myself and his father is somewhat in the same industry as him. Through genetics I was predisposed to like this specific career and not others. I did choose a career path before this current one but I then chose not to continue down that path. I chose because my genetics/brain was wired to enjoy learning about something else.
One question though, have you tried coffee before making an opinion, or was the opinion made beforehand? Does it make a difference, I don't know, I am just curious.
If you are predisposed to liking or disliking certain things how could you know you like or not like something before trying it? Isn't that a choice you make? If I have never had cake and I randomly just don't like cake how could that be? Assume that everyone in my family likes cake for generations and generations. There is nothing about the cake like the icing, texture, color, sugar, the fact it is fattening, etc that would make me dislike it, I just dislike it. Wouldn't that be a free choice to not like it? Also assume that it is not in my nature to rebel either and that disliking cake and being different from everyone I know is not the case. Am I missing something that would make this not a choice through free will?
Let me ask you this...do you choose to like cake? You might not know that you like or dislike it until you taste it, but liking it or not liking is not a choice.
Discounting free will does not negate choice it simply demystifies or helps to explain why we ultimately choose what we do. We face choices everyday, but they often don't feel like choices. What is being debated is the motivation behind these choices and the ability in certain situations to make different choices or choices that are inconsistent with our physiology, biology, genetics and experiences.
By default if you make a choice it is consistent with your biology, physiology, genetics and experience, otherwise you wouldn't make it...even if your conscious experience isn't so cut and dry.
Yes it is. You chose to like it or dislike it. You can't tell me that you don't like coffee just cause, you flat out plain chose not to like it. Tasting it only confirms or denies your original opinion.
I agree with everything else but there is a huge flaw in your argument. With everything you stated, if someone were to tell you that, "free will give you the ability to discount free will" you can not win. How can you argue that? It is a circular argument, you know?
I am having a hard time trying to play devil's advocate. I agree with everything you are saying, Shaun I am just trying to keep this interesting and keep the debate going. It's tough to find/come up with arguments for something you disagree with lol.
Arguing that free will is proven by your ability to either except or discount it is circular reasoning. It's like saying I believe in God because he exists and I know he exists because I believe in him.
I didn't choose to like the ideas in Harris' book anymore than I could choose to dislike them even if I wanted to at least not at this point in time, that's not circular reasoning...that's reality.
But there are arguments against free will. For example, we don't really completely understand consciousness, what causes it, why we have it, or even how our experience may differ from other animals. It may also be possible that there is some metaphysical component to our being that we just don't understand, can't detect. Unfortunately, those explanations require that we reach beyond what we know scientifically and in this case even contradict what we know. Still there are lots of mysteries in the world yet to be adequately explained by science and or theology/philosophy/metaphysics.
Science simply follows the most logical and probable path until it finds a dead end...then it tries another path. Free will is an attempt to describe something that we didn't have a scientific basis for...that has changed and is still changing.
We already acknowledge extenuating circumstances for various behaviors...this is just taking it to its logical conclusion.
Digest this:
The Black Cat Analogy
Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat.
Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a cat that probably isn't there.
Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there and then claiming you've found him.
Science is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat using a flashlight.
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Justin
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Oct 05, 2012 11:31AM
How about the argument that you have free will to believe in whatever you want. You have the free will to make an opinion about free will. I think some argue that free will is like freedom of choice. Some say that you may be restricted in choice due to outside forces like laws and ethics but you have the freedom in your mind to believe and think however you want without any repercussions. In that sense the argument is that your free will is free from reality, laws of physics, causality and basically everything. If you have a thought, it is an original one that no one can take from you. You can not get in trouble for your thoughts if they are just that. You have the ability to think up anything you want and no one can affect how you think or what you think. That is a tough argument to refute unless you say that someone will believe in something or have a thought put in their head due to an external stimuli. Example, I wouldn't have thought about free will right now unless someone brought it up. It was not a free thought instead it was a forced one. The rebuttle would be that my opinion is free (the argument is circular and frustrating). I agree with you though, I believe that there is no free will. People are drawn to certain things through their biological makeup and are predisposed to doing certain activities. You look at a person with down syndrome, does that person have the free will to do what he or she wants? No. He/she does not have the ability to have the thoughts that normal people have, this is why they have to be taken care of constantly and always watched. They are prisoners in their own body and do not have the free will to change that. Now, the argument against that is that regardless of any physical and mental limitations, that person with down syndrome still has their own thoughts and that is through their own free will. I know this is a lot but I have been waiting for someone, anyone to discuss this topic. I appreciate your comment and thusly letting me vent.
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Well, we are free to do what we want, of course, but we are not free to WANT what we want. I (whatever "I" in this would even mean is not really clear) don't really have a choice as to what thoughts, needs or wants arise in my mind. For example, I might have the illusion that I somehow choose to write the word "Santa Claus" here, but given the physical state of my brain and the rest of the universe at the precise moment I wrote, it was not possible to be otherwise. Besides, if you could hook me to a brain scanner to see what was going on in my brain at the moment of my "decision" you would see that the decision was actually made long before I became consciously aware of it. Your example of people with Down syndrome is a good one, and there's really no difference between a Down patient and the rest of us: we are ALL prisoners in our own bodies, our physical states. But actually of course, there is no prisoner - we ARE our bodies.
You had the choice to make whatever argument you wanted. You could have argued it in any way you wanted. You could have used any words you wanted. You chose those words to form your argument in the way you wanted to form it because that is how you wanted to do it. Your last argument is the one that works the best. Your body makes decisions before you even realize it. This is science. Hard to refute science. Could one argue though, that your body has an infinite amount of options to choose when making a decision but your body chooses just one. The body freely chose what it wanted to do. If there is a fire in your house you have an infinite amount of options, some right and some wrong. Your body will commit to a decision during that period because it is what it freely chose to do. If you chose to go out through the door vs going out through the window is up to you. Both get you the same result; getting away from the fire, but both are possible options that your body freely chooses. I hope that makes sense.
Actually, Harris would argue that you don't have an infinite number of choices...although an infinite number may theoretically exist. You're mentally "accessible" choices would be different than mine and might to a large extent be influenced by every moment of your life up to that point when you act and the only way we would share the exact same "options" are if we shared identical genetics, identical life experiences and identical situations.The argument here is that "free will" is an illusion. There is a biological basis for behavior, all behavior, and it can be explained in biological terms. It is not some metaphysical state or a soul that acts independent of our brain. That contrasts this idea of "free will" that asserts that we all have complete discretion over what we do. And if our decisions are in fact being made, literally before we become conscious of them, then how does that support the notion of choice.
Your body doesn't freely choose anything. Your body responds to a set of impulses. Many of those choices/decisions are determined at the unconscious level, meaning they never even cross our conscious mind. And what decisions you do make consciously will be heavily, if not totally, influenced by all the neural connections in your brain.
So a person, who because of conditioning, genetics, and past experiences reacts calmly under stressful situations really has a whole different set of "real" choices, than someone who doesn't...it isn't a choice for one person to panic and other not to, even if it appears that way. The calmer person doesn't choose not to panic because he can.
It doesn't mean that there aren't an infinite number of possibilities in the universe...just that for realistic purposes your personal choice is very limited and probably absolutely determined by your brain and how it is wired along with the rest of your physiology which is nothing more than your genes, conditioning and experiences all working on you.
In response to your third paragraph, that the body does not freely choose to do things. Imagine this, you have the option to either walk through a door or hop out of a window. The door leads outside and as well as the window and leaving through the window would cause no injury what so ever. You are the same distance from the door as you are from the window. In this particular instance leaving out the door and hopping out the window would take the exact same amount of effort/energy. You chose to leave through the door...why? I guess you could argue that it is common to leave through the door and that prior learning have made the body accustomed to leaving through doors. The body would completely ignore the fact that there was another option besides the door. Am I right? As much as I agree with you, and I do. I 100% agree to the fact that there is no free will, not even an illusion of one. We are predisposed to doing certain things; essentially what your argument is. The one argument for free will that I can't seem to argue against is this. You have the free will to believe or not to believe in free will...how do you argue that? . You freely chose to believe the fact there is no free will. Do you see what I mean?
Justin wrote: "In response to your third paragraph, that the body does not freely choose to do things. Imagine this, you have the option to either walk through a door or hop out of a window. The door leads outsid..."Whether you choose the door or window or neither could be influenced by many things...first of all whether you knew that both were safe choices, two, your state of mind, your confidence in your ability to make it through the window as opposed to the door...which seemed like a safer or more logical exit for you based on your mindset. Someone who is hysterical may not be able to "think" period. And even if you could think, the option you choose would be unique to your character, your personality, your thought processes and ultimately you...and what are you if not a sum of the parts.
Actually, you don't necessarily have the free will to believe or not believe in free will and therein lies the illusion...it really feels like a choice...yet your ability to even entertain the idea that free will does not exist first requires that the idea has been introduced to you at a time in your life when you are open to the idea.
For example, I didn't consciously choose to like Sam Harris' ideas about free will any more than I chose to hate coffee and like tea. I don't choose to like coffee...I just don't. I can choose not to drink coffee...but is that really a choice? Likewise I can choose to drink tea instead of coffee...but again, is that free will? I believe what he says is true because the argument made against free will is consistent with things I have already accepted as true based on my experiences, my personality, my mindset and if you get down tot he nitty-gritty, even my genetics.
I am not sure if you have ever read Brave New World. But the premise is that we create a perfect society by first manipulating genes and the gestation period, next babies/children go through a strict conditioning so that they not only accept their station in life...they don't seek to change or question it. They are content with what they have, not because other choices don't exist, but because they have been programmed and conditioned to find certain choices desirable over others. It is interesting to see a book written so long ago, suggest the very thing that Harris suggests, without the intimate understanding of the brain to back it up or even addressing free will specifically, yet still making the observation.
Think about this, technically, a dog "makes" choices too. They can "choose" to chew up your shoe when you leave or not...does that mean they have free will? It is really hard to think that what makes us special is some firing of neurons. We're animals...just ones with bigger, more complex brains.
I'll have to read that book, it sounds interesting. I agree with everything you stated though. I got into my career because I chose to pick that path, but did I really pick it or did it pick me? My father is in the same industry as myself and his father is somewhat in the same industry as him. Through genetics I was predisposed to like this specific career and not others. I did choose a career path before this current one but I then chose not to continue down that path. I chose because my genetics/brain was wired to enjoy learning about something else.
One question though, have you tried coffee before making an opinion, or was the opinion made beforehand? Does it make a difference, I don't know, I am just curious.
If you are predisposed to liking or disliking certain things how could you know you like or not like something before trying it? Isn't that a choice you make? If I have never had cake and I randomly just don't like cake how could that be? Assume that everyone in my family likes cake for generations and generations. There is nothing about the cake like the icing, texture, color, sugar, the fact it is fattening, etc that would make me dislike it, I just dislike it. Wouldn't that be a free choice to not like it? Also assume that it is not in my nature to rebel either and that disliking cake and being different from everyone I know is not the case. Am I missing something that would make this not a choice through free will?
Let me ask you this...do you choose to like cake? You might not know that you like or dislike it until you taste it, but liking it or not liking is not a choice.Discounting free will does not negate choice it simply demystifies or helps to explain why we ultimately choose what we do. We face choices everyday, but they often don't feel like choices. What is being debated is the motivation behind these choices and the ability in certain situations to make different choices or choices that are inconsistent with our physiology, biology, genetics and experiences.
By default if you make a choice it is consistent with your biology, physiology, genetics and experience, otherwise you wouldn't make it...even if your conscious experience isn't so cut and dry.
Yes it is. You chose to like it or dislike it. You can't tell me that you don't like coffee just cause, you flat out plain chose not to like it. Tasting it only confirms or denies your original opinion. I agree with everything else but there is a huge flaw in your argument. With everything you stated, if someone were to tell you that, "free will give you the ability to discount free will" you can not win. How can you argue that? It is a circular argument, you know?
I am having a hard time trying to play devil's advocate. I agree with everything you are saying, Shaun I am just trying to keep this interesting and keep the debate going. It's tough to find/come up with arguments for something you disagree with lol.
Arguing that free will is proven by your ability to either except or discount it is circular reasoning. It's like saying I believe in God because he exists and I know he exists because I believe in him.I didn't choose to like the ideas in Harris' book anymore than I could choose to dislike them even if I wanted to at least not at this point in time, that's not circular reasoning...that's reality.
But there are arguments against free will. For example, we don't really completely understand consciousness, what causes it, why we have it, or even how our experience may differ from other animals. It may also be possible that there is some metaphysical component to our being that we just don't understand, can't detect. Unfortunately, those explanations require that we reach beyond what we know scientifically and in this case even contradict what we know. Still there are lots of mysteries in the world yet to be adequately explained by science and or theology/philosophy/metaphysics.
Science simply follows the most logical and probable path until it finds a dead end...then it tries another path. Free will is an attempt to describe something that we didn't have a scientific basis for...that has changed and is still changing.
We already acknowledge extenuating circumstances for various behaviors...this is just taking it to its logical conclusion.
Digest this:
The Black Cat Analogy
Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat.
Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a cat that probably isn't there.
Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there and then claiming you've found him.
Science is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat using a flashlight.
