Geezus

Most sceptics of religion (like myself) say that the idea of God removes free will and instills a sort of telelogical, or predetermined fate for everything. My question is do you believe (or can you prove) that we really do have free will, because I don't know about you but, try as hard as I might, I have never been able to turn myself into a six foot tomatoe.(one of my lifes many disappointments) And also, from whence do the laws we abide by come from if not from some God?

Livia Regina

You have my most sincere condolences on not being able to turn yourself into a six foot tomato. Maybe you should try a carrot?

I think that we do have free will, but within limits. We can't change our forms but we can change who we are, what we think, what we do, and how we behave. There are some things that we have the will to change but not the power (I could will myself to be 6' barefoot all I want but that won't make me any taller than 5'1). I can't prove that we have free will, I'm not sure it's even possible to prove.
Which laws to you mean? Physical laws or moral ones?

__________________
Rule 37: There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload.'

Geezus

I mean the physical restraints of the universe like time and gravity.

Geezus

I mean the physical restraints of the universe, like time or gravity.

Mantus

The laws we abide are simply there. Sure you can say they come from some God, but that's not really an answer, more of a choice to stop asking the question at certain point - something along the line of yelling "IT JUST IS!" to a seven year old who keeps asking "why?"

As for free will? We have the freedom to play our part in the universe. Doest cost a cent, in fact it was given to us at no charge. Well leased really, and it expires in some eighty years if we take care of ourselves.

Now you can’t do whatever you want because that would require you to have influence over the whole universe, but alas it is the universe, which has influence over us.

And I hate to sound like Deep Thought here but you can’t give an answer if you don’t have a question. The problem with “free will”, along with many other philosophical concepts, is that it’s nonsensical. What is a free action? Is it when we do something without being influenced by anything else? That would make us completely random and chaotic. Doesn’t work.

Every action and reaction is a consequence of something and that gives our lives meaning; it enables us to make sense of it all – wait no it doesn’t, well just ignore this last bit, ignorance is bliss – wait no it isn’t, er…

ratiocination

There are limits to our free will. Everything in this world can be reduced to Physics, and that is something that I like doing. If you think about the quantam mechanics and Herzberg Uncertainty principle, it says that there is always a probability of an event happening, but some probabilities are higher than others. So everything WE do, every brain thought every neuron message every action, is determined by the motion of molecular particles. So this basically says that Free Will exists, but usually we dont really give ourselves a choice, because certain things just "happen."

Quantam mechanics was a big step in Physics because it allowed Free Will to exist. Take for example Newton's Laws. In Newton's universe, there is always a definite answer in everything. Thus, we humans could be pre-programmed into acting the way we do. Now, however, theory says that we do have Free Will ... to a certain extent.

I am not sure whether you like the way i reduce everything to Physics.

Livia Regina

ratiocination, could you explain a bit about quantam mechanics and how they pertain to free will? I'm afraid I never studied physics - hated the math.

__________________
Rule 37: There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload.'

ratiocination

haha yeah i feel the same about it too.

Basically it is based on the model of the atom, where there is the nucleus containing the protons and neutrons and there are the electrons revolving around it. The Bohr atom model says that there are fixed energy levels for the electrons, so they can only be found a certain distance from the nucleus at any time. In this case, everything was fixed, and the universe functioned in a set pre-determined manner.

Quantam mechanics changed everything. It says that there is a certain probability or chance of finding an electron in a certain part of the atom. But, there are places where the probability is higher and places where the probability is lower. The Herzberg uncertainty Principle says that the more you try to narrow your range of places of finding the electron, the smaller the probability that the electron can be found there. When you widen the range, the probability of finding the electron there increases.

So what Quantam mechanics does is that it leaves a certain space open for some sort of random behavior, and this means that humans are no longer set within limits, but actually have some form of a choice...all because of the quantam mechanics theory..

A bit more on quantam: The electrons were proposed to orbit around the nucleus in a wave like fashion..and there are some complicated equations associated with them.

Hope that helped, Regina

Geezus

first of all it is the Heisenberg theory of uncertainy not Herzberg? And Newtons laws have nothing to do with free will, my question is, is where do these laws come from and why do they exist at all? Have you ever thought that the imaginitive powers of the human mind are so great, that any idea we come up with actualy becomes real. So when Newton "Discovered" the laws of motion, he actually created that idea, that the universe in fact gained those properties because we thought them up. To what extent is matter and thought seperated?

Geezus

I've got something new to add. It's an argument against free will. Say hypothetically that time travel is possible and you some how build a time machine. If you went back in time and shot your mother, would you die. Or are there laws of time just as there are laws of material existence? And if there are caustic laws of time, that is a major proof against free will.

JJRousseau

Well my first question is; do you consider free will the ability to choose "anything" or just the ability to choose. In other words, if you are limited to choosing between only two options but there is no restriction on which of those to options you choose, is that still free will?

Mantus

Randomness does not create the posibility of free will. An action that has no cause is meaningless.

flstf

One theory I read about somewhere is that if you go back in time and shoot your mother, another parellel universe is started, one where you are born from your mother then go back in time and shoot her and another where you never exist. And the number of parellel universes is infinite, or something like that, LOL.

noodles

the theological reason why we have free will that is contiguous with the concept of god:

when christ denies the temptations, he leaves man to fend for himself, follow whoever he wishes, and to keep himself and god a mystery. in doing so, there is no way for man to ever truly know if god exists, it is the choice of the individual to make of things what they wish.


but, i'm going to go with sartre on this one:

we have absolute free will. we have the ability to choose to do ANYTHING we want. whether or not this follows through to success depends on lots of factors, mostly ones beyond our control (hence we despair).

example: a prisoner can choose to break out of prison. he is exerting his free will. it is very likely he will not succeed, however.

Geezus

But my point is that we can't choose ALL the options, we can't walk on walls or fly, those are the restraining laws of existence. And also is it possible to think of something that doesn't exist, because what if by thinking of it you have brought it into being. Is it possible to think of geometric shapes that don't exist, and by thinking of them, you create them? Where is mind and matter divided in the choices we make?

zen_tom

Good thread.

First-Up, Lot's of people seem to think that Newton's laws fix the universe as a deterministic one and only see an escape from that determinism in the Uncertainty Principle. I think that Newton's laws do allow for the concept that people think of as free will (I don't want to get into that here, there's another thread where we talk about that in detail) because when they are applied to multiple objects in certain orientations, those objects will behave chaotically, their positions and velocities deviating from where our calculations might expect them to be.

But, Geezus' main question is, where did these laws come from?

I certainly don't think they have any relation to mind. Before Newton, things fell down. After Newton, things still fell down, we just had a more precise method of describing how they fell down.

The laws we are able to see and infer from what we see around us are describing how the universe operates. I'd like to think that one day, we will be able to refine all of the existing laws and replace them with 1, 2 or 3 fundamental ones. Our descriptions of reality we inherited and which have been the same for probably the last 50 years are starting to look a little parochial and dusty. I'm talking about the Bohr model of the atom, or the wave-particle nature of light, of the distinctions between energy and matter, relativity, quantum physics, field theory and all the classic textbook physics stuff. Every thing is described as specific instances, there's no strong consistancy between any of them - what I'd like to see is a single generic idea that covers all of these different situations. Apparently Quantum Physics comes close to this, and many phenomena that had previously had classical explanations for them are describable in terms of QP - but not all.

The trouble with QP is that it doesn't make sense. Things exist and don't exist at the same time, actions can happen at a distance, photons 'decide' how to behave depending on whether they are going through one slit or two - it's all messed up compared to the world we are used to.

It's one of my favorite ideas, Plato's allegory of the cave talks about how we can believe that shadows on a wall are reality while actually there's a lot more happening that we can't know about behind the scenes. I'd be happy to think that one day someone will work out a behind the scenes model that fits and describes the universe properly. It's been attempted by Bohm and others and though the idea is not widely accepted, it is at least IMO a step in a positive direction.

Livia Regina

It did thanks.

We do have free will, even though we are influcenced by our surroundings and natures. We can always choose to do something to our detrement or to choose something that will help us. A choice between two things is still a choice, however limited.

I think that the laws of physics were put into place by whatever created the universe when it was created and we're just trying to understand how they work.

__________________
Rule 37: There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload.'

powerclown

Well said, and I agree. And, there will also be in existence the option of more than one choice in any situation.

hoosier52

I believe in the God of the Bible and I do believe in free will. God could have created us obedient had He wanted but instead gave us a free will. We can choose to believe or not to believe and we all make choices everyday of our lives. As far as where do the physical laws come from? Again, I believe in the Bible and in the creation by God it describes. In that creations He established the physical laws this universe would operate under. I know some will think me some uneducated idiot; but I have a degree in mechanical engineering and have been employed as such for several years. After much thought on this very subject, I believe I see evidence for divine creation. ...my free will to believe such, I guess.

MSD

The laws of physics aren't laws as we think of them. They're simply observations of the way things happen under certain circumstances. If they were set in place by a creator, then I would have to figure out what created the creator, what created the entity that created the creator, ad infinitum. It seems infinitely more logical to state that everything always existed as it does now, and that stuff just moved itself around in ways that could be described by what we call the laws of physics.

If you remove a supreme being from the equation, as I have done, then thoughts and actions are simply the results of chemical reactions in our bodies. These chemicals can react in certain ways, as an example: these reactions enable me to think out these arguments and convey them to you by manipulating the keyboard with my hands, which is accomplished by chemical reactions in my brain sending electrical signals through my nerves to my hands, etc. On the other hand, there are certain reactions that cannot take place because of limitations on what can be accomplished by these reactions. For example: while you can stand up straight and ball up your fists, you cannot impart enought energy to the system (your body) to initiate the reactions that would convert your body into a stalk and your balled up fists into tomatoes. If you could put enough energy into a system and control it precisely enough, you could do damn near anything.

I suppose you oculd say that free will is limited only be the phenomenon that is described in the law of conservation of mass and energy.

Mantus

Certainly a choice has to be a conscious act. Thus it is our mind, which gives us free will. Yet our minds are programmed and determined by the circumstances of our environment.

When we are born, we are not given a choice. When we are infants our parents and guardians determined everything we were exposed too. When we become children we get a bit of freedom to make up our minds, yet these decisions have to be made by the mind, which was developed while we were infants.

As we become teenagers and then adults our decisions and the thoughts behind them are the results of our fate. One is not free to make any choice one wants because our choices are limited by our knowledge and our knowledge is determined by our experience, which is in turn determined by our environment.

The concept of free will does not apply to our world.

noodles

snippy snippy to get to the meat of this one.

ignorance does not refute free will. we do not know if there is a god or not. we have no proof. some people, however, choose to believe while some do not. if an amazonian tribesman decides to use the rocks to start the fire, he did not choose to not use matches. there was no choice. there was no choice to not know about matches. to him, there were no matches. he chose between the rock and the bow and stick method. he didn't have a bow and stick so he chose the rocks. he could've chosen bow and stick, thogh he had none and would have had to walk home for a week to get them, but he did not. such is free will.

we can choose to do anything that is not something present in our own minds initially. if we choose to sprout wings and fly, it is a choice that one can make. it will never happen, but it is a choice that one can make nonetheless. choices made via (radical) free will do not have to be anywhere near rational or possible in the current state of the world/universe/etc. choice, however, will always exist.

Olorin

just take a step back and look at reality. distance yourself from it for a while. you will start to realize that your ego is just something that exists. what you consider to be "you" is, indeed, something, but when it comes down to it, it's extremely slippery to define. are you the thoughts in your head? are you the body that exists as a catalyst for these thoughts? are you some sort of combination of both? it gets complicated, too, as you think about the particles in your body entering, leaving in the breath you take, the atmosphere coming into contact with your skin, the millions of organisms that exist within your body and help with your various bodily functions.

but, as you distance yourself from reality and take an objective view, you will see that what you really are is all of existence. there is no seperation between where you begin and the universe starts.. its all the same thing, all made of the same "stuff" and energy (i'm of the personal belief that all matter happens to be energy, but that doesn't really come into play here).

so what does all this have to do with free will? well, as far as your ego goes, it doesn't really have free will. psychologists often debate the nature vs. nurture argument, and it is generally agreed that what we are is a mixture of the both. if you hold the nurture view, you believe that who our egos are is a product of how we were brought up. on the other side, the nature view states that our personalities depend on the chemicals and energy that make up our bodies, and that we are unique people because of the way the universe has played out. but neither of these makes sense with the notion of free will. if free will existed, the former view would be the result of your parents and upbringers "free will", which is not your free will. the nature view is also composed of elements that are out of our control.

quantum physics provides us with an element of uncertainty in the universe and this does add support to the view that there could be free will. the uncertainty in the actions of the universe could indeed be the exact manifestation of some sort of free will. i think, though, that this approach to quantum physics is a bit short-sighted. while, it may be true that events occur without predictability, that does not mean on some level that something is causing these events to occur, we just lack the means to measure these actions.

so, what i think is that the notion of free will does exist when you step outside of your ego and think of yourself as all the matter / energy of the universe. i believe the universe is infinite, and in this infinity, every action and event is played out. your ego is but one of an infinitely many possibilities that the universe has constructed. the universe has the freedom to try every single action and interaction and does so. my view does, actually, get a bit dualistic here. as the universe "chooses" every action, it can be argued that the fact that every action is played out destroys the notion of free will. i don't take a view on this point, i don't think it's possible to do so without completely taking a guess. i leave it at taking the dualist view of believing both to be true. the universe exists without meaning, however, as we are created randomly from this universal existence, we create our own meanings. while we may not have free will, the question comes of if our meanings, while created by random chance, still really have meaning. i don't think this question can be answered, i think that it comes down to your "decision" of if your life has meaning.

i don't know.. my views change often. it is an extremely interesting subject, one which i find myself contemplating frequently.

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Sometimes I widdles the future.

-Cletus

kd4

you know what I heard? there's something called an edit button so if you post something, and no one else replies, but if you think of something new, you can still "edit" that post and add to it and it won't seem to have changed