Does freewill exist?

riuTEMPriu said:

nobody wants to live with the guilt of what humanity is capable of - so if I have to pick one extreme, I go for free will

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I would think that without free will it's easier to cope with that -- also the concept of "guilt" makes not much sense then. Especially not with guilt towards human behaviour as a whole. None of us chose to be born a human.

(Well according to the Tibetans some of us actually chose to be re-incarnated as a human, but those would be Bodhisatvas who chose the human life in order to liberate others.)

Rob Roy said:

If you didn't know the child was going to be a psycho and you didn't try to kill the child (your brakes failed, didn't see the kid, etc.) it wasn't an action of free will. No points for saving the world in that situation.

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My argument was about "accountability" and not free will.

Even without free will you can still hold yourself accountable for something. I smoke tobacco, so if I get cancer I will hold myself accountable for that in some sense.

Rob Roy said:

Again, that is when I would say a person is exercising free will.

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Maybe you can elaborate what the mechanism of "free will" is, in your eyes. Because either an action is caused by something else (then it's not free), or it isn't. However, how do I have to imagine an "uncaused" action? Is that just randomness?

If "free will" caused the action, then how did the free will interact with the world? It would need to be a cause, without having a cause itself. So it would need to stand outside the world and be part of it at the same time.

Is this a dead horse everybody is kicking. I have a solution. Whatever makes you feel better is the correct answer.

ComputerSaysNo said:

I would think that without free will it's easier to cope with that -- also the concept of "guilt" makes not much sense then. Especially not with guilt towards human behaviour as a whole. None of us chose to be born a human.

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This is why I think free will is important. Yes, people feel guilty over stupid things every day, but not everything is one of those things. People should feel guilt over e.g. committing genocide. None of us are what we are by choice, and yet some among us try to leave the world better than we found it, some worse, and some just fritter away their energy apologizing while accomplishing nothing. You can look for a way out of that logic, but... why?

StonedGardener said:

Whatever makes you feel better is the correct answer.

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riuTEMPriu said:

This is why I think free will is important.

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Free will does not exist because we would like it to exist. Reality does not care much about what we would like it to be.

Maybe humans are just cruel assholes in general, and our fate is ultimately ruled by guilt-free psychos. Tough luck, but I don't see anything in the laws of the universe that would preclude that.

ComputerSaysNo said:

our fate is ultimately ruled by guilt-free psychos

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Do they have free will?

Don't Bogart said:

Do they have free will?

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No, and they don't even have a conscience.

ComputerSaysNo said:

No, and they don't even have a conscience.

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Oh.. O.K. Good 'cause I do and I don't want them to screw it up.

ComputerSaysNo said:

Even without free will you can still hold yourself accountable for something. I smoke tobacco, so if I get cancer I will hold myself accountable for that in some sense.

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You know I was going to answer with some smart-ass answer but I've seen the addiction with someone I work with. Even after a close call with lung cancer he still smokes.
Not just your free will but your pure will is being put to the task.

Don't Bogart said:

You know I was going to answer with some smart-ass answer but I've seen the addiction with someone I work with. Even after a close call with lung cancer he still smokes.
Not just your free will but your pure will is being put to the task.

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I know that I can "not smoke". Since when I'm not among smokers, and don't have cigarettes or tobacco available, after a few days the addiction has waned enough for me to stay away from it completely.

Unfortunately it becomes really hard to further resist when I get "enabled" (usually by other smokers making tobacco available). And that is not to blame the other smokers for anything, it is my own addiction.

Obviously you could apply this to a lot of other temptations and addictions, maybe not as dangerous as smoking.

We're really not built to resist temptations, the only good way to deal with them is keep them away. The smoker can't have tobacco at hand, and the junkie needs to stay away from his "friends".

ComputerSaysNo said:

Free will does not exist because we would like it to exist. Reality does not care much about what we would like it to be.

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Conversely, free will doesn't fail to exist, because we wish it to be so.

Reality? Which dimension?

Rob Roy said:

If

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ComputerSaysNo said:

I know that I can "not smoke". Since when I'm not among smokers, and don't have cigarettes or tobacco available, after a few days the addiction has waned enough for me to stay away from it completely.

Unfortunately it becomes really hard to further resist when I get "enabled" (usually by other smokers making tobacco available). And that is not to blame the other smokers for anything, it is my own addiction.

Obviously you could apply this to a lot of other temptations and addictions, maybe not as dangerous as smoking.

We're really not built to resist temptations, the only good way to deal with them is keep them away. The smoker can't have tobacco at hand, and the junkie needs to stay away from his "friends".

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Have you considered reading the book.The cow in the parking lot.it states that you are waiting for a parking spot and the driver backs out and an asshole in a Jeep swerves in and takes your spot.OR you drive onto that parking lot and there is a cow laying in that parking spot.either way you don't get the spot,how you react is up to you.

On free will ,you are asking the wrong question.How will ultimately knowing effect the outcome?

It's the same as the Alien question,people want that so they can stop looking out for themselves.

2 Soon

I'm a moron

buckaclark said:

Have you considered reading the book.The cow in the parking lot.it states that you are waiting for a parking spot and the driver backs out and an asshole in a Jeep swerves in and takes your spot.OR you drive onto that parking lot and there is a cow laying in that parking spot.either way you don't get the spot,how you react is up to you.

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I think ownership of your reaction is key. You can't control the world, free will isn't bending the world to your whims, but you have free will in the choices you make in reaction to what occurs around you.

Cigarettes are a great example, love me some cigarettes. Gave them up many years ago. You absolutely have free will, the decision is still yours to make, the addiction just adds some weight to what you are considering.

buckaclark said:

On free will ,you are asking the wrong question.How will ultimately knowing effect the outcome?

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This is a good point.

Knowing and understanding that we do not have free will could enable a couple of things:

• We could be more forgiving to others and ourselves.
• We could understand that a retributive penal system makes no sense.
• We could understand that since we are not in control, it possibly puts algorithms (or machines) in control eventually; we will sooner or later get hacked.

The last point is probably the most important one. The illusion of free will suggests to people that at least the "strong willed" are immune to getting "hacked", and that's a dangerous illusion.

Here is a very good article by Yuval Noah Harari about that issue:

Rob Roy said:

Conversely, free will doesn't fail to exist, because we wish it to be so.

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Absolutely! You can't have it either way.

It either exists, or not, but that does not depend on what we would prefer. In the same vein, it would be nice if there was a benevolent God-Mother who will ultimately step in and save humanity -- that does not mean that it is the case. It would be nice if there was some form of ultimate justice (or reckoning), but Reality really does not give a fuck.

Reality? Which dimension?

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That's gibberish.

buckaclark said:

Have you considered reading the book.The cow in the parking lot.it states that you are waiting for a parking spot and the driver backs out and an asshole in a Jeep swerves in and takes your spot.OR you drive onto that parking lot and there is a cow laying in that parking spot.either way you don't get the spot,how you react is up to you.

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Or you then hit the cow. Take it home and dress it. Steaks for everyone.

HGCC said:

Cigarettes are a great example, love me some cigarettes. Gave them up many years ago. You absolutely have free will, the decision is still yours to make, the addiction just adds some weight to what you are considering.

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The addiction is brutal for some people. It's arrogant and ignorant to assume all people can quit as easily as the next guy/girl or you.
The tobacco industry is counting on it.