I want to, but Determinism sounds pretty reasonable. Everything is just going with the flow from the big bang, including what happens in our consciousness. Do I think this because of my own will, or because of events set into motion billions of years ago? π€
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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well atoms themselves are inherently random you can't even perceive them without them blowing the fuck away
I believe free will exists but the world is deterministic. In your life you can make any choice you want & it was decided by you. However the effect of your actions on the world is so small that it will continue on a predetermined path. Events in the future are βpredeterminedβ & all I have power over is how I react to it.
You gave an argument against free will based on Determinism, but there are other good and even better arguments IMO. Like the science-centrist arguments of Neuroscience , Psychological and the Evolutionary Arguments. Then there are the philosophical Arguments from Divine Predestination or Fate. There are still more but the fun is on the discovery.
You have as much free will as a leaf or a fish.
We have free will, but the majority are not free to exercise it because of material conditions and/or circumstance.
Does that even mater? Either stance can't be proved.
Yes. Every person has to believe in it to accept the notion of good and evil.
If free will was truly non-existent, it would mean that a theoretical entity with access to perfect information would be able to perfectly predict your actions. I don't believe that is possible; I think that human beings are too irrational. Consider a very simple decision: what am I going to have for dinner? You could know the restaurants I have access to, what food is in my home, what I have discussed in a given day, and even what my current mood is, but it can ultimately come down to a whim. I could choose something I've never had before, for no reason, and seek it out.
I believe that we are individual actors in a very complex system that introduces lots of constraints to our decision-making process. We may not even be consciously aware of some of the constraints; however, we are always the ones ultimately making the decisions. You always have the option of a whim.
What about randomness? Most people would say to be random is not to have free will.
This depends, because there are two different kinds of randomness. A lot of the "randomness" that people encounter is actually based upon something, and our theoretical entity with access to perfect information could predict the outcome of that randomness perfectly. I'm thinking of stuff like computer randomness, number generation, games of chance, that sort of thing.
However, true random absolutely exists; in the words of Terry Pratchett "Things just happen, what the hell." You see it with mutations in nature; ordinarily healthy cells can spontaneously change without directed input. It is unpredictable, even for our theoretical entity.
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ya'll some neo and oracle bustas up in here.
yes, as entities that are conscious of consciousness, we can steer ideas and actions with our will and intent.
This may or may not have universal implications, so stop trying to be all grandiose. we're barely existing conscious ants that have imaginations. does that mean the universe won't experience entropy? one of these things is not like the other.
OK let's just start with the assertion that there of a casual link back to the beginning of time.
We will begin with the big one first. We don't even know if time had a beginning.
If we assume that time began at the instant of the big bang. There is no plausible link between my bean induced fart, and some random energy fluctuation, there are just too many chaotic interactions between then and now.
There are so many things we don't know, making the extremely bold claim that free will doesn't exist, is dangerously naive.
We can't even solve Navier-Stokes; neuronal interaction is so far beyond what we are currently capable of, it's ridiculous.
My recommendation to anyone contemplating this question. Assume free will exists; if you are wrong, it will made no difference; you were destined to believe that anyway.
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Local causality doesn't imply unbroken universal causality. In fact, the idea everything is a purely deterministic projection of some initial state is far weirder than the idea that stochastic actions can influence a partially deterministic state.
Yes. I could talk about quantum indeterminacy as a scientific argument for it, but fundamentally, I believe in it because I want to[1]. I don't like the idea of being a deterministic machine with a fate I can't influence with active choices. It's not provable either way with the current state of science, so I choose to believe my preferred option is the correct one.
[1] Of course such a statement presumes free will. I think I want to, anyway.
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