Just a stray question.. do anyone here prove to me that we have freewill? anyway.. the whole idea of freewill was brought up since we have the power to choose.. but it is really there.. I mean if you believe in a SUPER POWERFUL ENTITY named GOD, does freewill exists or not.. clearly define as the will to do anything beyond our limit... but can we do anything beyond our limit? does this tells us that FREE WILL is just a fancy idea?
Do we have Freewill?
good philosophical question. you will get plenty of opinions but no definitive answers.
i like to think that free will exists, and also that God exists. nothing really to prove it to me except my own faith in it.
i like to think that free will exists, and also that God exists. nothing really to prove it to me except my own faith in it.
i have free willy
hahahaha
i am halarious.
but on a seriousnote, i like to think so. if we dont what and who decides for us, i find it hard to imagen anything deciding everyones decisions
hahahaha
i am halarious.
but on a seriousnote, i like to think so. if we dont what and who decides for us, i find it hard to imagen anything deciding everyones decisions
This is a duplicate topic of http://www.frihost.com/forums/vt-29010.html (By the most excellent and wonderful Philosopher Princess. May we all see you again!)
I have another question, which defeats the point of this question: Does it really matter? Everything is determined by free will. What's going to happen is going to happen. You trying to change what is going to happen is going to happen, and it therefore does not change the world.
Have a nice day.
I have another question, which defeats the point of this question: Does it really matter? Everything is determined by free will. What's going to happen is going to happen. You trying to change what is going to happen is going to happen, and it therefore does not change the world.
Have a nice day.
Just like Albert Camus said:
| Quote: |
| We make our own destiny, and we, not God, are responsible for our actions and their consequences. |
I suggested that humans are granted free will, but God knows what will happen. This, however, is supposedly a contradiction (though I still fail to see it).
So, if you view it as a contradiction, then I would have to say determinism.
So, if you view it as a contradiction, then I would have to say determinism.
| Soulfire wrote: |
| I suggested that humans are granted free will, but God knows what will happen. This, however, is supposedly a contradiction (though I still fail to see it).
So, if you view it as a contradiction, then I would have to say determinism. |
Its simple, if Go knows what will happen before it happens than the future has to be ether predestined or determined or else how could not know what we will do.
Think about it this way. You have to make a choice between these two things that will have a dramatic effect on you're live and ultimately the world. If God knows which choice your going to make then you can not make any other choice than that cause then God would be wrong and he wouldn't be all knowing.
I suppose that makes sense.
I thought it was interesting in my Global Issues class. We were studying the "Big 3" of religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) and when the teacher mentioned that most Muslims believe in predestination, the predominately Christian class thought it a laughable subject.
I tried to argue a similar case. I stated that Christians also believe in predestination. I was met with the argument that "God only knows what we do, but we don't." And I just said "But if God already knows, then we don't have that choice, because it's going to happen." And if it didn't happen, that would make God NOT all-powerful.
So I suppose what I mentioned was my earlier thoughts, before I viewed it as a contradiction.
Perhaps a better phrase is that humans are under the illusion of free will.
I thought it was interesting in my Global Issues class. We were studying the "Big 3" of religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) and when the teacher mentioned that most Muslims believe in predestination, the predominately Christian class thought it a laughable subject.
I tried to argue a similar case. I stated that Christians also believe in predestination. I was met with the argument that "God only knows what we do, but we don't." And I just said "But if God already knows, then we don't have that choice, because it's going to happen." And if it didn't happen, that would make God NOT all-powerful.
So I suppose what I mentioned was my earlier thoughts, before I viewed it as a contradiction.
Perhaps a better phrase is that humans are under the illusion of free will.
| Soulfire wrote: |
| I suppose that makes sense.
I thought it was interesting in my Global Issues class. We were studying the "Big 3" of religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) and when the teacher mentioned that most Muslims believe in predestination, the predominately Christian class thought it a laughable subject. I tried to argue a similar case. I stated that Christians also believe in predestination. I was met with the argument that "God only knows what we do, but we don't." And I just said "But if God already knows, then we don't have that choice, because it's going to happen." And if it didn't happen, that would make God NOT all-powerful. So I suppose what I mentioned was my earlier thoughts, before I viewed it as a contradiction. Perhaps a better phrase is that humans are under the illusion of free will. |
Not necessarily, you could be a compatibilist. You would be saying that the future is determined (by God - which doesn't necessarily mean that he creates the future, only that he has determined - that is, found out - what it is), but that free will can still be sensibly defined (it has to be for Heaven and Hell to make sense).
I agree that its a good philosophical question but there are no definite answers. I find that we most probably have free will however those who have seen the matrix will know the other possibilities that people have. I think that if this is reality then it is probably we have free will but if this is all a lie then free will will have illuded us and our lives.
God might know it all , our fates might have already been written, i control my life; statements like this are fine examples of free will. At at least one point of time in life we each have the free will to choose what we want.
I don't really care about god being able to predict our destiny or fortune-tellers,even if they did know everything, do you?
The world as it is; is an example of free will. It a mass of calculations, we each do what we want or think what want, and it just goes on in a cycle.
I don't really care about god being able to predict our destiny or fortune-tellers,even if they did know everything, do you?
The world as it is; is an example of free will. It a mass of calculations, we each do what we want or think what want, and it just goes on in a cycle.
If we have freewill or we don't? If you knew the answer or you didn't? Will it change a thing? Will your life change?
I don't think so, life will continue...
I don't think so, life will continue...
I see no point in this question you ask, no offense. I mean if you want to wake up to day and not go to work or school or whatever, what do you call that? Free will 
If you want to be able to fly then that's out of the question of this so called Free will you're fusing over. It doesn't have anything to do with free will. You're a human not a bird, you're bound to earth and that's just that. When you choose have a Jumbo Jack instead of the BigMac, when you choose to do good or bad, etc. God gave us the free will to do what human are capable of in their disposal. I hope that help you.
If you want to be able to fly then that's out of the question of this so called Free will you're fusing over. It doesn't have anything to do with free will. You're a human not a bird, you're bound to earth and that's just that. When you choose have a Jumbo Jack instead of the BigMac, when you choose to do good or bad, etc. God gave us the free will to do what human are capable of in their disposal. I hope that help you.| Samerron wrote: |
| If we have freewill or we don't? If you knew the answer or you didn't? Will it change a thing? Will your life change?
I don't think so, life will continue... |
If free will does not exist, then how can we be held responsible for what we do. Isn't it immoral - ridiculous even - to punish someone for something that they had no control over? So how can we punish criminals if they were just acting according to the way nature made them act?
Maybe you only care about how this question will affect your own life, and you don't care about the rest of the world at all. Others of us have a hard time sitting idly by while people suffer for what may be one big mistake. There are people who have been in jail for most of their lives - and others who are sitting on death row awaying execution - and if it turns out that they really aren't responsible for what they did, then i'd say that it's damned important that we figure that out as quickly as we can.
| stan wrote: |
| I see no point in this question you ask, no offense. I mean if you want to wake up to day and not go to work or school or whatever, what do you call that? Free will |
Orly?
You say that when you wake up, you have a choice of whether to go out or stay in. Do you? Or is that determined by what kind of person you are and how you feel that morning?
As a matter of fact, if i didn't want you to go to school, couldn't i just slip something in your dinner that would make you feel bad the next morning? Is it really in your control to go in that case?
So if it wasn't me slipping something in your dinner - if it was just bad air with a mild virus in it, or maybe your dinner was slightly underdone and it made your stomach upset - and you didn't go to school... was that really free will?
Or... does it just feel like free will because you don't know any better?
| Quote: |
| You say that when you wake up, you have a choice of whether to go out or stay in. Do you? Or is that determined by what kind of person you are and how you feel that morning?
As a matter of fact, if i didn't want you to go to school, couldn't i just slip something in your dinner that would make you feel bad the next morning? Is it really in your control to go in that case? So if it wasn't me slipping something in your dinner - if it was just bad air with a mild virus in it, or maybe your dinner was slightly underdone and it made your stomach upset - and you didn't go to school... was that really free will? Or... does it just feel like free will because you don't know any better? |
Hah? What are you trying to accomplish here? You're saying there is no freewill? correct me if I'm wrong.
First of all you're taking this topic way out of context. I did mentioned
| Quote: |
| God gave us the free will to do what human are capable of in their disposal |
that is if you believe in God, if you don't then i can rephrase it to We have free will to do what human are capable of in their disposal
Alright, I'll take your scenario. Say, I'm sick today and can't go to work. Therefore I loose the "capable" of being well and cannot to go to work, so I HAVE to recover before I can get back to work. This is the way it is for today because I'm sick. The next day I'm well again, I have to option to choose to go to work or not. I have the free will of my own capability because I'm not sick anymore. More options are available to me.
When disaster strike or anything beyond your control happens, it doesn't mean that you loose your free will to choose, you just not capable of doing what is beyond you. You can still have the options that you're capable of doing. Also, the fact that you chose to respond to my post is also free will. You don't have to respond but you did, so you exercised your ability to choose to respond to my post. I hope that clear what I wanted to say.
Second of all, base on your point of view, I think you then like to blame everything on everyone else and everything else because you don't have the freewill. Correct me if I'm wrong here too.
AND of course I'm not trying to change your point of view or think I can change your point of view by just posting this in this forum. People can only change when they're being expose to a certain point of view more often. Oh, and you don't have to respond to this post either. You decide.
| knight_frost wrote: |
| Just a stray question.. do anyone here prove to me that we have freewill? anyway.. the whole idea of freewill was brought up since we have the power to choose.. but it is really there.. I mean if you believe in a SUPER POWERFUL ENTITY named GOD, does freewill exists or not.. clearly define as the will to do anything beyond our limit... but can we do anything beyond our limit? does this tells us that FREE WILL is just a fancy idea? |
I think that a god just likes to observe us, not interfering but rather simply watching our every move as a form of entertainment. Our lives are up to humanity itself.
| Indi wrote: | ||
If free will does not exist, then how can we be held responsible for what we do. Isn't it immoral - ridiculous even - to punish someone for something that they had no control over? So how can we punish criminals if they were just acting according to the way nature made them act? Maybe you only care about how this question will affect your own life, and you don't care about the rest of the world at all. Others of us have a hard time sitting idly by while people suffer for what may be one big mistake. There are people who have been in jail for most of their lives - and others who are sitting on death row awaying execution - and if it turns out that they really aren't responsible for what they did, then i'd say that it's damned important that we figure that out as quickly as we can. |
Allow me to explain. We live in a system, which is how things go in this universe. We, as humans, are trying to know and understand if this system actually gives us free will, or is everything predetermined. On the individual level, human mentality is capable of performing choices and thus one finds himself free and capable of choosing. Though, on the level of the whole system, this might be or might not be true, and this is what we and many philosphers are trying to understand.
My point is that the system will not change, and we as human individuals acclaim that humans are responsible for their choices. Since humans perform choices, they must be resposible for their choices (ie. actions). In addition, once an individual knows the consequence of his choice he consider which direction to choose (say a kid wanna steel a candy, but since he knows his parents are gonna punish him, hence he reconsiders his act).
Therefore, an individual acknowledges the choice and the consequences (being responsible for his choice). This whole thing of the individual mentality, the choice and the consequences, are part of the bigger system. Whether the system is predetermined or not, this is another thing and it should not affect the choices of any individual, nor the consequences and the responsibility.
Therefore, I live everyday of my life knowing that I should be responsible for my actions, not caring about the whole system. God, who is at a higher level than system, can then judge us according to the system He created, which is hard for humans to grasp, that is if it's within our mental capability.
I hope you read the complete post, I know it's a bit long, but that's my philosophy. Any comments?
| stan wrote: | ||||
Hah? What are you trying to accomplish here? You're saying there is no freewill? correct me if I'm wrong. First of all you're taking this topic way out of context. I did mentioned
that is if you believe in God, if you don't then i can rephrase it to We have free will to do what human are capable of in their disposal Alright, I'll take your scenario. Say, I'm sick today and can't go to work. Therefore I loose the "capable" of being well and cannot to go to work, so I HAVE to recover before I can get back to work. This is the way it is for today because I'm sick. The next day I'm well again, I have to option to choose to go to work or not. I have the free will of my own capability because I'm not sick anymore. More options are available to me. When disaster strike or anything beyond your control happens, it doesn't mean that you loose your free will to choose, you just not capable of doing what is beyond you. You can still have the options that you're capable of doing. Also, the fact that you chose to respond to my post is also free will. You don't have to respond but you did, so you exercised your ability to choose to respond to my post. I hope that clear what I wanted to say. |
You missed my point completely. -_- Yes, obviously if free will exists then you can't be responsible for choices you have no control over. But what i was trying to demonstrate is that you don't have as much control over yourself as you seem to think you do. When deciding whether to go out in the morning or not, how much of that decision is "yours" and how much of it is made by your biology, conditioning, social needs, and so on?
i know you think you're in control of your choices. i know you feel like you're the one who decides whether you bother to get out of bed in the morning or not. But that doesn't mean that you really are.
Imagine that a brilliant bio-psychologist were to give you a thorough examination, and that person has enough knowledge to be able to use that information to develop a perfect profile of your personality and your biology. Suppose then that that person is now able to predict - in advance - whether or not you will get out of bed in the morning to go to school or whatever, with perfect accuracy. If that were true, then does "free will" have any meaning? If you decided to get up and go out in the morning - even though you may feel like it was a decision you made freely - what was really responsible for the decision, you or your glands?
Now, obviously, there are no psychologists with that level of predictive technology - yet. But think about it. Can't you predict - with astonishing accuracy - how your friends and family will behave in a given situation? Yes, your predictions won't be perfect - but then again you are hardly making a detailed scientific study of them, are you? Just by casually observing people, you can predict their behaviour remarkably well. You know Diane is a dilligent person, so you predict that she will probably get out of bed and to school... and you will probably be right. But then one day, you know she had a rough time at school the day before and would probably have been so humiliated that she might skip to avoid embarrassment... and you will probably be right. You know Cara is a slacker and skips all the time, so she will probably skip again... and you will probably be right. But the day she has that big test you predict that she will show up... and you will probably be right. So the question is: how much of Diane's decisions are "free will" and how much are determined by her diligent nature and/or social pressures? How much of Cara's decisions were made "freely" by her, and how much were due to the fact that she is a slacker by nature?
| stan wrote: |
| Second of all, base on your point of view, I think you then like to blame everything on everyone else and everything else because you don't have the freewill. Correct me if I'm wrong here too. |
You're wrong here, too. -_- If free will doesn't exist, then the concepts of praise and blame are meaningless. If free will doesn't exist, what sense is it to blame other people (or inanimate objects and chemical reactions and whatever else you file under "everything else"???) if they don't have free will either? -_-
Instead you get a universe where things just are the way they are because of they way the universe has unfolded to make them the way they are. The successful athlete is a successful athlete because of the way genetics gifted him with both the ability to perform and the temperment to strive, and because his environment allowed or even encouraged his natural tendencies. Similarly, the nasty criminal is a nasty criminal because he was genetically pre-disposed to be violent, aggressive and incompassionate, and because his environment allowed or even encouraged his natural tendencies.
| Samerron wrote: |
| Allow me to explain. We live in a system, which is how things go in this universe. We, as humans, are trying to know and understand if this system actually gives us free will, or is everything predetermined. On the individual level, human mentality is capable of performing choices and thus one finds himself free and capable of choosing. Though, on the level of the whole system, this might be or might not be true, and this is what we and many philosphers are trying to understand.
My point is that the system will not change, and we as human individuals acclaim that humans are responsible for their choices. Since humans perform choices, they must be resposible for their choices (ie. actions). In addition, once an individual knows the consequence of his choice he consider which direction to choose (say a kid wanna steel a candy, but since he knows his parents are gonna punish him, hence he reconsiders his act). Therefore, an individual acknowledges the choice and the consequences (being responsible for his choice). This whole thing of the individual mentality, the choice and the consequences, are part of the bigger system. Whether the system is predetermined or not, this is another thing and it should not affect the choices of any individual, nor the consequences and the responsibility. Therefore, I live everyday of my life knowing that I should be responsible for my actions, not caring about the whole system. God, who is at a higher level than system, can then judge us according to the system He created, which is hard for humans to grasp, that is if it's within our mental capability. I hope you read the complete post, I know it's a bit long, but that's my philosophy. Any comments? |
There are many problematic statements in your reply. In most cases, they are assertions without any evidence to back them up. In quite a few of them, we have evidence - both philosophical and scientific (yes, really, actual scientific evidence, as i will explain in a moment) that they're wrong.
Let's start with the core assertion that humans have/make choices. What evidence do you have of this? i'm going to guess that your answer will be that your evidence is that you feel like you're making choices. You feel like you are considering the options, weighing the evidence, considering the consequences, then freely choosing a course of action.
There's a problem with that. Have you ever been wrong in your life? Most definitely - we've all been wrong about something at one point or another. But did you fee right at the time? You did, didn't you? So what you feel obviously isn't necessarily the truth.
There is strong philosophical and scientific evidence that free will does not exist - and that you are not making the choices that you feel like you're making.
For the philosophical evidence, i direct you here, because it's long and complex, and it's already been written, so there's no need to write it again (you only need to read the first half of the essay, because the rest doesn't deal with free will, it deals with moral responsibility whether free will exists or not).
For the scientific evidence, i'll explain here.
There have been a number of experiments done that are all roughly similar in design. What they do is fool subjects into thinking they made choices that they actually did not. There are literally hundreds of experiments of this sort, all slightly different. For example, in one experiment, people were shown a bunch of pictures of pretty people and asked to pick the one they thought was prettiest. When they did, the experimenter would pick up the photograph they pointed to and hand it to them... only they did a quick magic trick switcheroo, so that the photo they handed the subjects was not the photo they had pointed to. Then they would ask the subjects what it was about that picture that made them choose it as the prettiest. And the subjects would answer! Most subjects would explain their "choices", give detailed reasons, and so on... only... they had never made that choice! They only thought they did.
So if it is the case that people can believe that they made choices that they did not, and be able to explain the rationality behind those choices in great detail... how can you be sure that you're not doing the same with your own "choices"? Maybe you're not making choices at all - maybe you're doing whatever you're biologically and socially programmed to do... and then mistakenly believing that it was your choice, just like those subjects in those experiments?
And in fact, it turns out that psychologists can very accurately predict your behaviour by using situational analyses (basically by analysing your behaviour in similar situations to detect patterns), and various genetic trait factors (basically by looking at whether your parents were aggressive people or not). So basically, your "choices" can be predicted by scientists and you may not have actually had any part in making them, regardless of what you feel. Where is free will in any of that?
The point is that this question isn't something that you can just waltz into a thread and casually dismiss like you did. This is a very profound philosophical question that is being discussed to this very day - and is even starting to filter out of the world of philosophy and into the world of science. Your "philosophy", such as it is, is not philosophy at all. It's just what you believe - which has no basis in any real, deeper thought. Although it sure seems like you don't really care about the problem at all, it's still always wise to actually research a bit on what work has been done on a topic before you stroll into a discussion and shoot your mouth off.
Well if there is a god, they say that mankind are the children of god. And like all kids we need to make our own choices sooner or later right? So in that respect i think we have free will. However if you look at it from a different view point you could say that we only believe that we have a choice. Who knows, our brains are basicley bio-computers and maybe they come pre-programmed with choices and we only think we make the choices.
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