Do you believe in it? I have spent a ridiculously long time thinking about it, and from whatever angle I view it, I can't seem to make it work. Angle one: The religious The universe and all humans are created by an omniscient and omnipotent deity. The deity creates humans, and the laws of physics, in full comprehension of everything that will happen in the future (as for it to be otherwise would contradict the two qualities I described). Thus, every human responds to the world, and to eachother, as the deity knew they would, intended them to do, and created them to do. There is no free will in this situation. Angle two: The physical/biological Humans make decisions based on their brain chemistry. Brain chemistry is defined by two factors: genetics and experiences. Our genetics are a product of evolution, and our experiences are a product of other people, nature, and the way we interpret information (as determined by our brain chemistry). In short, you or I respond to a stimulus the way we are programmed to, just like a computer. We believe we are making a decision, but the decision we make is determined by our brain chemistry. Secondly, seemingly random processes in nature are not in fact random, but extremely complex sequences of events each dependent on a set cause. An example is rolling a dice, or the formation of a galaxy. You can see the way randomness isn't quite as random as it seems by our ability to predict the weather. This effectively means there is no random chance in our evolution, and hence our genes (leading back to there being no free will or randomness in our brain chemistry). On the other hand, the concept of free will is actually important, even if it isn't real. We believe our decisions are real, and so that belief affects what decisions we make. I hope this made sense. Thoughts?
I believe in free will. Have you ever heard of the multiple universe theory? It states that every possible event, no matter how improbable, will happen at least once, somewhere. This, coupled with quantum uncertainty (see Shrodinger's Cat for the most popular image) make me believe that I do have a choice, because nothing is certain until it is observed. Neuroscience may reveal that every action has a physical/chemical cause, which would be interesting. But I'd prefer to think we're sentient beings who have wills of our own, and don't just cow to the inevitable playing out of physics.
Knowing which decision someone is going to make doesn't mean they don't have free will. You're applying Calvinism to all religion. Also, quantum mechanics goes against your idea that everything is cause and effect related.
Yes, I have heard of the multiverse theory. It is widely misrepresented by science fiction, I think. I've often heard in scifi that when we make a decision it causes the universe to 'split' or something like that, which isn't really correct. In fact, the multiverse theory (dependent on sting and M-theory) never suggests that the different universes were once the same universe, or are dependant on eachother. They are simply (an infinite number of, if the idea of all events occurring is true) universes with randomly assigned values for the shape of the extra dimensions proposed by string theory. The reason I rambled on about how the universes aren't connected in any way to each other is because unless they are connected, they have no baring on the free will or lack of thereupon of the inhabitants of one universe. I don't deny that there had been no identified cause-effect relationship observed in quantum mechanics, and I have no reason to suppose there is one, however, I'm not aware that quantum interactions are particularly significant in chemical reactions. But feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Leaving aside the quantum mechanics bit because I already addressed that, I'll tackle calvinism. You're right, knowing what someone will decide does not mean there is no free will. However, being the creator of a being in full knowledge of what they will do if you create them in a certain way does, in my opinion, mean there is no free will. I am saying that all religious people consider themselves to be calvinists, or think about free will in that way. I am saying that, looking logically at a religion with a omnipotent and omniscient creative deity, I don't see how free will can exist.
I believe in free will. First: religion is really complex to discuss as not everyone believes in the same thing. I, for example, am very religious but my religion says God (or a divine force) gives you free will to do as you want on your life, being following a good or bad path. HE doesn't interfere in your decisions or knows the future or created the world, HE simply exists in a divine plan. But that's what I believe so it's complez to discuss it as everyone has its own beliefs and we should respect it. Second: I agree with you at some point about our decisions based on the chemistry brain, but if it were only like this, like a programmed computer, I don't think we would evolue or if we were, it would only in case of necessity and that's not how it happens. So I think we have a free will to make our own decisions even if it's affected by our experiences and genes. For last, yeah I know a bit about it, but what I can say is that yeah it's true that even chaos has its own 'order' and predictability, but there's the theory of the various universes that shows how we can make different decisions that change our lives (like butterfly effect) so I think that's free will we have. On the other side, I also believe this free will is limited to our culture/society/personality. A good example is being gay, most people don't choose it, they simply are, but how you deal with it on your life is up to you (again free will) Well, these are my thoughts on it
The uncertainty involved in quantum mechanics doesn't really affect physical and organic chemical reactions. I mean, electrons are almost always where we expect them to be, so it makes since that with an outlier we won't see much effect on a macroscopic scale. It's impossible to for us know how an electron's exact positioning affects chemical reactions, and even if it was possible, it's impossible to predict an electron's position. Polarity of atoms and molecules is basically completely random and can have huge effects that are simply beyond our cognitive ability. Most scientists don't believe in the universe being a giant cause and effect chain reaction as far as I'm aware. Frankly, believing it is smacks of things like "fate" and I dare say "intelligent design." If you believe that such a deity will not have you encounter any temptation greater than you can't handle, then the idea of free will doesn't seem far-fetched. We'll have to agree to disagree.
I have free will. I make my own choices. I do not believe in any sort of god who might influence anything. No one selects what I do beyond myself. My partner has influence but in the end I have free will.
I actually tackled my thoughts on free will when i struggled with the beliefs i was raised to have and the beliefs i came to fully trust. The way i look at it, the fates don't dictate what your choices are. They do however dictate where your choices will lead you. each choice affects your future and leads to your next choice. It is not dissimilar to the parallel universe theory stated above. though i guess my beliefs follow what you call the "misguided" version. lol
I have to quote and credit fatalmoon91 here, because this post really depicts how I feel about it, also. I believe I have free will, however my upbringing suggests that I do everything to serve the Lord. While I won't discredit that thought, I don't believe that allusion, true or not, governs the decisions I make. We as humans on this planet are born with the ability to make our own decisions. Granted while we're young we're guided by our parents, but the decisions are still open to us. As we age, and freedoms become more available, we are then given the opportunity to create our fate. Again, we are kept in line this time by our laws...but the ability to make those decisions is still there.
I disagree with the whole argument as to free will versus predetermination. If predetermination were the truth (I'm not saying it is either true or false), then if people could find out their fate, they could choose to betray their path, therefore, making predetermination a lie. I don't believe there is a way to see the definite future, so I don't believe that there is a way to betray it. I let life happen as it goes. That's that.
I think there's free will. While all that stuff you said about chaos earlier is true, there are parts of the universe that are infinitely complex. If you asked someone a question, and they had to ask their boss, and they had to ask their boss, and it would go on forever like that, that's what I mean by infinitely complex. I also think the universe has ways to get you an answer to your question anyway. Since everyone else is talking about quantum stuff I think quantum computers will work like that one day; if there is a right answer it will just give it to you. I do think emotions make us more predictable though. Also our options can be limited. If you dump a rat in a maze, maybe you don't know which way it'll run, but you have a pretty good idea where it'll go and what it won't do. You could even do it a lot and come up with a good guess as to how long it'll take to run the whole maze. And our imagination is limited to what we know already and whatever trippy stuff we dream up. I can't just imagine tomorrow night's lotto numbers and expect to win. My philosophy, I think most of the universe works like that rat in a maze. It's all just stuff that makes no sense by itself, but if you have a lot of it happening over and over then you can kinda figure out where some boundaries are, and once those boundaries are there then stuff becomes predictable enough to exist and matter. As to how this relates to religion and philosophy, I like Groundhog Day. You've got this poor guy who knows everything that's gonna happen. And it all happens reliably every day. But whenever he talks to people and changes things, they change, and he doesn't know what's gonna happen after that. I also like Lost when I'm thinking about this. The biggest reason people end up doing what they're fated to do when they go back in time is because they don't have that perfect knowledge. *spoiler* Like when Sayid shoots Ben, turning him into evil Ben. In both these cases you end up with someone that starts out all knowing or close to it, and ends up learning something new anyway. So if something that could know everything and do anything was out there, would free will still exist, or would everything be designed? And my thinking is that even if everything were designed, it would still have to "run". Meaning it would still have to do something for whatever designed it. Every time Bill Murray changes the town, the town changes him, and he wants different things and does things differently the next day. So I absolutely think it's compatible.
Personally, I consider myself a compatabilist: humans have free will and the freedom to choose,but under certain situations they are forced to act differently because there is no other choice. Thus, one cannot be blamed for their actions, because there was no other choice or there was something affecting their judgement. This proves that men are not always free agents, but sometimes are victims. There are times when they can make their own decisions, but there are times when they can’t. A good example for a free will argument is the recent discovery of a mind controlling fungi in ants. Ants with the fungi are identified as zombie ants. In this circumstance, the ant is acting more as a victim than as an agent. There is a parasite in these ants that is affecting their actions. The fungi is making the ants crawl up a blade of grass so it can be eaten. In this situation the ant is not free and could not have done otherwise so it should not be blamed for its actions. Just like humans, the ant was being affected by some external force which shifted their actions, and should not be blamed for what is going on. Another part of my compatibilist argument is that humans are free as long as they understand things. There are times when people act a certain way because they lack knowledge that might influence their choices. For example, If I put cyanide in your soda and you do not know. You drink it. You can’t say you were not free to do so because you had the choice to drink it or not. However, if you knew about the cyanide you would have acted differently and would not have drunk the soda. Under this situation you had free will, but your lack of knowledge made you act differently.
From a rigidly scientific point of view, there is no free will. As far as we can tell (and all of the evidence points to this), the universe is a place governed by strict rules, like an infinitely complicated clock (the cogs being things like gravity). However, I believe that for all intents and purposes, we have free will. It's really just an illusion, but an illusion good enough to make life worth living. I mean, you feel in control of your thoughts, so what if they're really just a fixed reaction to the surrounding stimuli (and memories of past stimuli).
I know, that's what I said I said that I acknowledge that everything, including myself is simply the result of vast, intricate processes, however, the nature of that illusion is that I feel distinct from the world.
