Do humans actually have free will?

@Fairbanks,

YO!

I find dialogue on free will often avoids the obvious, to define free will as having choice is in my understanding not free will. Like all other creatures on the planet we are reactionary organisms. It is true we have a wider range of choices than many of our animal cousins, but we have no choice not to react, reaction is the only possibilty for life. Reaction is the basis of there being anything whatsoever--chemistry is our master. The world is relational, relations are established through reaction. Reaction is not choice, it is the way of reality. Consciousness itself is a reactionary process producing apparent reality. If this thinking is flawed please do enlighten. If the defination of free will is choice, what is the magic number of choices that establishes free will to humanity and not the rest of the animal world?

@PeterDamian,

yes. that is a great question ill have to think about.

@boagie,

boagie;28997 wrote:

YO!

I find dialogue on free will often avoids the obvious, to define free will as having choice is in my understanding not free will. Like all other creatures on the planet we are reactionary organisms. It is true we have a wider range of choices than many of our animal cousins, but we have no choice not to react, reaction is the only possibilty for life. Reaction is the basis of there being anything whatsoever--chemistry is our master. The world is relational, relations are established through reaction. Reaction is not choice, it is the way of reality. Consciousness itself is a reactionary process producing apparent reality. If this thinking is flawed please do enlighten. If the defination of free will is choice, what is the magic number of choices that establishes free will to humanity and not the rest of the animal world?

If I am reading you correctly, would you also agree that proaction is, at root, just a reaction to what one might perceive as a possible result of some other situation, and hence rendering the idea of "acting proactively" irrelevant?

Does that make sense? I know what I mean, but the coffee gremlins are jumping about in my head.

@TickTockMan,

TickTockMan. Smile

Yes, there is only one possibility and that is reaction, the fact that a reaction is due to a possible other situtation developing complicates the process somewhat, but again, reaction is the only possiablity, we cannot not react, for a considered non-action would still be a reaction to the given environment.

@boagie,

boagie wrote:

YO!
. . . what is the magic number of choices that establishes free will to humanity and not the rest of the animal world?

I find that the animals in my yard tend to lack a sense of altruism, however they each make free choices all the time. I suspect this is also happening with the plant kingdom. This is merely observation of behavior and of course we cannot know what is actually going on. We hardly know why we ourselves do some things and not other things and suspect long period OCD dominates most of the neighbors. I could write a book on this OCD observation, but why do another Proustian epic.

@Fairbanks,

Fairbanks, Smile

Well altruism was not really the issue, but yes it is found in the animal world, man would like to distance himself from his animal cousins particularly if he intends to eat them. I am not really familar with Proustian whatever, but reaction is the name of the game, for all animals, all organisms, man is no acception--stimulus response!!

@boagie,

boagie wrote:

Fairbanks,

. . . reaction is the name of the game, for all animals, all organisms, man is no acception--stimulus response!!

The problem is that animals and other creatures don't report on their intent. This is the essence of Libet's experiment and it is too bad he wasn't a philosopher and those who are trying to deal with his experiment are mostly not philosophers although they have impressive credentials otherwise. When something happens that would not happen without some creature making it happen, we have to say it is not mechanical but the other kind of causation. Or I do anyway.

@Fairbanks,

Fairbanks, Smile

There intent is the same as yours, survival, that alone should be an argument against free will. There is no point in bringing out unknown authorities on the question, here it is what you think. You wish to introduce a mechanical approach, do you believe that biology is mechanical, in part perhaps, but its all chemistry when you get down to the nitty gritty. The point was made that you cannot chose to not react, for even a considered non-action, is a reaction to said environment, and you are limited to the number of reactions you can preform at a given time, is that due to free will?

@boagie,

Common time, as taught in Kindergarten, is what the little hand and the big hand point to.

You have not defined time at all, you have desribed the actions of a clock. Are you suggesting that time is a set of hands moving radially around a central point within a circle of numbers? I ask again, define time, not the manner in which time is measured. What you have done here is the equivalent of defining wind as 'the movement of the leaves.' You cannot define time.

This led to Einsteinian time, which is common time in tensors and is really the same time. That leaves ten times to be defined.

1) How so?
2) Feel free to define them all.

Don't take this personally, but I suspect that your understanding of this is based on taking the word of some mathematician/physist who wrote a book of metaphors to explain what is a purely techinal matter. I doubt you can explain the ten kinds of time, except in vague, metaphorial terms.

For example:
"...the third kind of time, known as dooterbowderian time, refers to the changing tension in the universe within an open system; in other words, its llke a beehive, suddenly disturbed by a racoon, which causes the organization of the bees to dissolve, like the fabric of space-time which tears in the passing of dooterbowderian time." :sarcastic:

@boagie,

boagie wrote:

Fairbanks,

. . . You wish to introduce a mechanical approach, do you believe that biology is mechanical, in part perhaps, but its all chemistry when you get down to the nitty gritty. . .

That might move the location of free will to the electrons, which is fine although somewhat outside the domain of philosophy. I found Kant's argument good enough. While we cannot prove free will, we are free to assume it. Anybody who wants to stay around and argue is of course free to do so, but the refutations will never end.

@PeterDamian,

Fairbanks, have you given up; do you acknowledge that you cannot define time? Sorry If I insulted you, I just want to extract from you a real definition, not some pseudo-definition that neither of us understand.

@BrightNoon,

BrightNoon wrote:

. . . I doubt you can explain the ten kinds of time, except in vague, metaphorial terms.

. . . :sarcastic:

There are eleven. Go ahead and doubt, but a philosopher would be using his free will to find all eleven. They cannot be explained, excepting common time, that is a science kind of thing to do. As a start, ten of them are not a Kantian predicate.

@Fairbanks,

Well then, we are in agreement. Ten of these eleven sorts of time are meaningless, as meaningless as 'the 11th dimension' or star war's 'hyperdrive'. By the way, my point about causality and free will in no way depended on characterizing time as a simple idea. I incidentally referred to time as such and you contested. This was a side argument.

@BrightNoon,

BrightNoon wrote:

Well then, we are in agreement. . .

:eek:
Good. But empirically not good for philosophy since no two philosophers can ever agree.

@Fairbanks,

Fairbanks wrote:

... since no two philosophers can ever agree.

I agree that we can't ever agree

*feedback loop ensues*

@Khethil,

Khethil wrote:

I agree that we can't ever agree

*feedback loop ensues*

The vicious circle contracts to a point and emits a radical departure.

@Fairbanks,

Fairbanks wrote:

:eek:
Good. But empirically not good for philosophy since no two philosophers can ever agree.

Perhaps one of us is not a philosopher.

@BrightNoon,

BrightNoon;29192 wrote:

define time?

How about; "'time' is that which is necessary to keep everything from happening at once?"

"'Time' (03:16:35:57:06... GMT); the unique location of a specific moment among all synchronous moments." (see definition #1)

"Time; the distance between two events"?

@nameless,

The first definition is funny, but too informal to matter.

The second and the third demonstrate the inherent problem. To define time is tautology. You speak of location and of distance, respectively; location in what; distance of what; time!

@PeterDamian,

i think the definition of determinism needs more attention. i do not believe we can deny free will, at least to some extent. the example of the choice of breakfast cereals is a less significant example but a useful one nonetheless, so let's use it. I guess I do not understand how we can deny some form of free will, choice, whatever you want to call it. Our past does have some significance on the state of affairs today but i would have to disagree that our past necessarily makes our present to be determined. the question here is, as far as determinism...that is, with a theistic view of God, is our free will actually free, or has God already planned out what we are going to do, and there is nothing we can do to change it? Whatever view of God you have, almost all must submit that their "God" has some kind of supernatural foreknowledge and knows what is going to happen in the future because foreknowledge is a general characteristic of a "God" it almost comes with the territory... So did God know i was going to choose apple jacks over wheaties? For me, i believe determinism would have to entail the belief that God knew that i would choose apple jacks over wheaties because he already had it set in time and there was simply nothing i could do in my power to choose differently. Or did God know what i would choose but he did not make me choose apple jacks? He simply just knew what i was going to choose in his foreknowledge and in my free will i chose apple jacks, this latter view would fall under compatibilism.

Philosophy Forum

Do humans actually have free will?

Quick Links

My Account

able2know