lav-chan Posted July 15, 2005 Share Posted July 15, 2005 (Putting this in RWI because it partly concerns social/religious stuff.) So i was thinking, do you guys think that we really have free will? Like, is every person completely in control of their actions, or do you suppose there are a lot of things we can't do anything about? I think a lot of humanist-type people would argue that we have complete free will, but there are actually a lot of theories (religious, scientific, and otherwise) that argue that we don't. For example, the major religious arguement is that God intervenes in our lives. A lot of Christians don't believe this anymore, but some (and a lot of adherents to other religions, too) do. They believe that God can, for example, cause an AIDS epidemic. Or that God can cause a person to fight in a war or slay an enemy or whatever. There isn't really any way you can logically prove this, but a lot of people believe it. There are also some arguements that rely less on religion. For example, one time i was watching Law & Order, and the semen they found in a rape victim matched the DNA they had for a previously convicted rapist. The semen actually ended up belonging to the rapist's son. The defence got some scientist guy as a witness, who argued that there was a gene present in both the father and the son that had been linked to violent behaviour, and that the son basically shouldn't have been held accountable for his actions because it was his father's genes that made him violent. I don't know if that's based on actual research that they've done, but supposing it is -- that there is some 'violence gene' that we can pass on to our children. Do our children really have free will if we give them genes like that? If your son has the 'violence gene' and he commits a crime, is it his fault or his genes' fault? Another (more eccentric) arguement concerns time travel. Supposing that backwards time travel is possible, what would happen if i went back in time and tried to kill my grandfather before he met my grandmother? This is usually called the Grandfather Paradox. One of the 'solutions' to this paradox is basically that i can't -- that no matter what i do, i will be unable to kill my grandfather. The gun will jam, or the knife will miss, or i'll trip and fall, or whatever. Something will always happen to prevent me from making it so that i had never been born. That's kind of a crazy thing to think about, but it goes back to free will again. Those are just the three theories that i'm most familiar with; i'm sure there are tons of other theories out there that argue that we have no (or limited) free will. What do you think? Can God cause a person to commit murder, or can a bad gene cause a person to commit rape? Or are we completely in control of everything we do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹ Posted July 15, 2005 Subscriber¹ Share Posted July 15, 2005 i'll just ignore your time travel part. as for free will i belive our genes do deternimen a lot of what is happenieng with us, but only to the extend. the rest is shaped after you were born. as for free will. unfortunately many of people are so used to be brainwashed and not ahving to think for themselfs that they have no free will and most of the stuff they think is actually what others want them to think. (eg mall programming. most people dont really listen to the speakers in the malls yet are influenced to check the special offers told to them. if ask they dont even rememeber hearing them.. there tons more examples of social programming) so in my belive its not god (or should i say not just god, as while i dont belive in god per se, i dont deny the existence of higher being either) or genes - its ou own thinking and willingness as well as social factors around you that determine whether you are one of people who is living according to his own will. (a very rare case indeed) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Hawk Posted July 15, 2005 Share Posted July 15, 2005 Caution: I'm pretty much gonna be talking out of my ass and the sentences are gonna suck cause my grammer isn't top notch and I'm not on friendly terms with my dictionary/thesaurus. Ok. I do believe there is true free will to some point. Everyone has the option to do or not do depending if they have some kind mental impairment that doesn't let them think clearly. That example you gave about the rapist, there's gotta be countless people that have had criminal parents and they did nothing like them. They just use all those claims as an excuse. IIRC, I think something similiar was in the bible. One group was order (by God? I forgot) to kill the other group and all their children because the children had the gene (or something) from their parents. Total BS (IMO). As for the spiritual aspect. If you believe in fate, destiny or that God has a plan, then there's no such thing as free will. If fate or whatever did exist, everything would have happened for a reason. What you thought, what you saw. Everything. -- I don't think time travel exists. If it did, it would probably already have happened. Maybe if it were invinted a few generations later, some relative of yours would have come back to tell you to buy this or not do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirix Posted July 15, 2005 Share Posted July 15, 2005 this be philosophy territory mon clicky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boffa Jones Veteran Posted July 15, 2005 Veteran Share Posted July 15, 2005 I think we all have some sor to path to follow, but there is always another choice. It is like when you get the urge to jump off the building, you don't have to... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mAcOdIn Veteran Posted July 15, 2005 Veteran Share Posted July 15, 2005 Religion, Genetics, Pscyhiatry, are all scapegoats for the actions we don't wish to take responsibility for. We always have free will, always, and as long as we give people more excuses to explain thier actions we'll continue having people do things we think are ****ed up. When we begin looking into all these higher things such as chemical imbalences and genetics, we started washing ourselves of our responsibility to ourselves and society. No longer is it my fault if I kill someone, or my responsibility to stay happy throughout life, now it's some gene or chemical. It's all a scam and a way for us to feel better about ourselves as a species by placing the fault of our actions onto things outside of our control. We don't want to confront the possibility that we, as a species, have these dark urges and are capable of these deads, but we do. And until we start taking responsibility for these actionsm and holding those who do these things responsible instead of blaming other stuff then we will continue our downward spiral into a moral abyss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lav-chan Posted July 15, 2005 Author Share Posted July 15, 2005 When we begin looking into all these higher things such as chemical imbalences and genetics, we started washing ourselves of our responsibility to ourselves and society. No longer is it my fault if I kill someone, or my responsibility to stay happy throughout life, now it's some gene or chemical. It's all a scam and a way for us to feel better about ourselves as a species by placing the fault of our actions onto things outside of our control. We don't want to confront the possibility that we, as a species, have these dark urges and are capable of these deads, but we do. And until we start taking responsibility for these actionsm and holding those who do these things responsible instead of blaming other stuff then we will continue our downward spiral into a moral abyss.586216969[/snapback] Not to say that i necessarily disagree with you, but how do you argue against that stuff? Like, you can sit there and say that looking at genetics is washing ourselves of responsibility, blah blah blah, until you're blue in the face, but if it is true that there is a genetic disposition to violence, what is your answer to that? What is your logical arguement that a genetic disposition to violence doesn't limit someone's free will? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mAcOdIn Veteran Posted July 15, 2005 Veteran Share Posted July 15, 2005 I'm not saying that people with certain imbalences or genes won't be more inclined to do certain things, however I believe what they do with that inclination is within thier will. Of course, as with the psychiatric and genetic community thier research always starts at those who already would have displayed violence(for example. So lets say yes there is a violence gene and they find it in many people who commit violent acts, does that mean that there's no-one living a normal life with that very same gene? What of the people who don't have that gene and still commit violence? It's all statistical BS. Sounds like free will to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lav-chan Posted July 15, 2005 Author Share Posted July 15, 2005 Well, i agree that there'd probably be tons and tons of people with the 'violence gene' that never committed any crime, but is it fair to say that all those people who did commit crimes and had the violence gene could have controlled themselves? I mean (playing Devil's advocate), if you can have a chemical imbalance that causes you to swear at people or to hallucinate or to be afraid of water, why couldn't we assume that there's a chemical imbalance that causes you to 'lose your temper'? Furthermore, what if it is combined with other things? e.g., if you have the violence gene and your father beat you and you were picked on at school.... Is it your fault if that stuff ends up making you pretty irrational later on in life? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mAcOdIn Veteran Posted July 15, 2005 Veteran Share Posted July 15, 2005 Furthermore, what if it is combined with other things? e.g., if you have the violence gene and your father beat you and you were picked on at school.... Is it your fault if that stuff ends up making you pretty irrational later on in life? 586217064[/snapback] Yes it is. But then again define irrational. We have to factor in right and wrong. It's not wrong to be violent, it's wrong to be violent to the wrong people without proper justification. I'd say if your father beat you every day then that'd be a good reason to whoop his ass when you got old enough or kill him if you had to, if you're getting picked on at school and you flip out and beat up some kids then I think that's valid. I think what's more shocking then people getting violent under adverse conditions is the fact that we're so reluctant ourselves to be violent or acknowledge that it still has a place in society. The fact that people think you should be allowed to be a total ###### to someone everyday and not get paid back in some form is rediculous and infact breeds more violence because we refuse to stop these things until they spin out of control. Should a kid be allowed to constantly **** on someone everyday in the school system? There's this stupid imaginary line in society where you can insult, harass, haze, but as long as you cause no property damage or kill you're ok and there's no way to make it stop in our curent society outside of violence. I think a more valid argument against free will doesn't lie in chemical imbalences or genetics but in society, society and your surrounding forces situations onto you which you must react to, and to be frank violence will many times be that solution. As long as we as a society take a hands off approach to everyone else then violence will always be the solution. Something that's always ammused me is it's ok to go through life getting walked on but it's not right to stand up for yourself, why is violence so looked down upon yet pacification isn't? What's needed is a healthy understanding of both sides and to know when violence is acceptable, and frankly right now I don't think society is on the right path because pacifism seems to be the more preffered approach. The sad part of society is that our general well being has a lower value in society than our material possessions. If someone kicks my ass every day after work on the way home the police won't give two ****s, but if my car gets stolen then they'll do some work, why is that? Why do you have to get murdered, raped, or stolen from before you have any sort of protection in our society, and if so what kind of protection is that really? The way to get rid of extreme violence is to allow more violence as odd as it sounds. People who pick on kids during school should get the **** kicked out of them, that'd shut them up, but instead we allow them, tell the poor guy constantly abused that violence isn't the answer and that he should ignore it and then act shocked when it gets too much for him. Screw looking for the violent gene, we should look for and kill the complacency gene. I gave the real long, seemingly unrelated argument, to show that my definition of irrational and yours probably differs. Anywasy the cure for all these ails lie within our society not a pill, or gene splicing, or anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamz Veteran Posted July 15, 2005 Veteran Share Posted July 15, 2005 the grandfather paradox arises in the new model of time travel. quantum probabilities mean that, conditional on your existing now, the past (should you enter it and tamper with it) would accommodate the prior (for you) probability. the usual quantum determinism isn't really a solution. to say that uncertainty at the particle level builds up to free will at a macro-level is a false analogy. that there is particle uncertainty does not imply that there is free will. in any case, if we wish to look at determinism, we can think of it this way. if consciousness arises as a feature of neuron firings (for example, as a result of stimuli, patterns, etc.), but not the other way around, we should be able to identify physical phenomena associated with each instance of consciousness (but not necessary an instance of consciousness with each physical phenomenon). suppose at time t = t1, there is conscious activity. does it necessarily follow (backward induction) that it was caused by some prior consciousness at t0? let's think of it this way. if micro-level physical phenomena somehow caused the conscious activity (i.e. consciousness is supervenient on physical processes), but the micro-level physical phenomena are beyond our conscious control, then we do not say the resulting action is free in the same way that we do not consciously control our programmed cell death. in a sense, free will and micro-level causality are incommensurable. now, when we think about freedom, we usually think about 2 types of freedom, positive and negative: to be free to do something and to be free from obstruction. if i reach for a grape, but the grape isn't there, then i'm certainly not free to grab it, but it's not because i'm being obstructed. i'm not free because there is a lack of opportunity. if i reach for it but i'm bound, i'm not free because of obstruction. these consequently define the conditions for free will. of course, every free act presupposes the existence of possibility. hence, every free act is the result of imaginative power. it is my conviction that the source of freedom is 1) laws (there can be no freedom without the definition of limits) and 2) the power of the other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirix Posted July 15, 2005 Share Posted July 15, 2005 I think dreamz is the only one that is taking this issue deep enough. Regardless of whether or not a person is inclined through genetics or social pushes and pulls, we have to realize that (as long as we aren?t bringing in supernatural substances in) the human body is entirely composed of atomic particles. When the arguments for determinism and indeterminism are fleshed out --one saying everything is unshakably pre-determined and the other saying that every micro-level change is random -- they have the same outcome: we are at a loss as to where our definition of free will can be placed. Determinism denotes the human mind to act as a simple link in a chain which does (either through physics or an unknown force) what it is "told". Indeterminism arises out of the new scientific problem of quantum indeterminacy: atoms often act in irrational (absolutely unpredictable) fashions. If this is the case, some say, when we get a sudden thought, or a sudden inclination to do something, it is more rational to attribute this to quantum randomness than to free will. Some philosophers believe that interderminism *gives* us free will. But if you take this line, you've got to face the problem of dualism; accepting indeterminism forces you to place conscious decision making into a "mental substance" (Descartes) which implies an immaterial soul. But absolutely no one can prove this. So the third option people try for is called a compatibalist theory: that determinism is compatible with free will. I"Giving Libertarians [free will believers] What They Say They Want"i> A well-known compatibalist, Daniel C Dennett gives a model: (borrowed from a paper summary @ http://www2.drury.edu/cpanza/libertarians.html) Dennett thinks we can install indeterminacy right here to give the Libertarian what he wants.Let's assume that when subject X is trying to decide what to do in a given situation, X "satisfices". So X does the best he can with what occurs to him at the time. Now some of the beliefs that occur to X will be deterministically generated, and some will be indeterministically generated. So let's look at the example of Jones: Jones is finishing his dissertation and must decide whether to take the job in Swarthmore or the job at the University of Chicago. 1. Jones "satisfies". 2. So although there are many beliefs that Jones has that could be relevant to making this decision, only A, B, C, D, E and F occur to Jones. 3. A, B, C are deterministically generated 4. D, E, F are indeterministically generated Based on A - F, Jones takes the job at the U of Chicago. Right after the call, Jones realizes consideration G. If Jones had thought of G, she would have taken the job at Swarthmore. What is important here? (a) The behavior of subject X is physically unpredictable. (b) The behavior of subject X is even intentionally unpredictable (unless one issues a conditional prediction). ? The behavior of subject X is intelligible. Here the libertarian gets just what they want! The agent's actions are never totally predictable, intentionally or physically. But yet the behavior is intelligible. Dennett thinks this model has some good benefits: (1) The agent actually does make the decision intelligently, though the decision making process is not fully deterministic (2) Indeterminacy is in the right place (3) The model makes sense on a biological level (4) Moral education makes a difference (5) We are the authors of our own decisions So whether or not we get our pool of possible selections from deterministic or indeterminstic sources, he believes that we are the ones who decide "okay, i've thought long enough about this, I wish to decide...now". Although this theory places the decision making as originatiwithin/i> the agent, he does not (and cannot) explain how or why we stop and make a decision. Consider an air hockey table: two nets: decision a, decision b. the red line is where your decision changes from a to b. the puck is the final decision. for dennet, we do not control the direction of the puck or at what specific time the puck will be on one side of the air hockey table or the other. The only input we have is to a tit/i> stop the puck on the side we choose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamz Veteran Posted July 15, 2005 Veteran Share Posted July 15, 2005 ahh, dennett! i've been reading searle, and, as you may know, they are rivals in a way. at any rate, dennett's model doesn't solve the problem. he doesn't explain how one can make the decision. if the decision is caused by micro-level phenomena of which one has no control, then clearly any decision at the macro-level (in consciousness) must be a consequence of micro-level activity. if he argues that the decision is intentional in the usual sense at a conscious level, but not realized at any lower physical level, then he affirms the distinction between micro and macro levels. so he admits of free will by saying it is exempt from the laws of determinism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincent Posted July 15, 2005 Share Posted July 15, 2005 Another (more eccentric) arguement concerns time travel. Supposing that backwards time travel is possible, what would happen if i went back in time and tried to kill my grandfather before he met my grandmother? This is usually called the Grandfather Paradox. One of the 'solutions' to this paradox is basically that i can't -- that no matter what i do, i will be unable to kill my grandfather. The gun will jam, or the knife will miss, or i'll trip and fall, or whatever. Something will always happen to prevent me from making it so that i had never been born. That's kind of a crazy thing to think about, but it goes back to free will again. 586216303[/snapback] As far as time travel is concerned, here is what i've read. Like you say this is a theory, but here it is ( at least regarding time travel, via wormholes): Time travel leads to the matricide paradox suppose one were to meet one's mother as a young girl and kill her. The logical inconsistency seems a devastating argument that would prevent such a journey from ever taking place. the matricide problem has a possible solution Consider a billiard ball on a trajectory that allows it to fall down a wormhole. It re-emerges in it's past to collide with it's earlier self, knocking itself onto a different trajectory. But this cannot happen: nature, or rather, the physics, abhors and, somesay, forbids casuality violation. The wormhole's gravity defocuses the billiard ball's path. When it emerges, the ball has a high likelihood of missing itself. In fact, the situation is not so different from the everyday problem face by quantum physicists of whether Schrodinger's cat survives the release of poison gas triggered by radio active decay. Quantum uncertainty may even have resolved the matrcide puzzle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.nudd Posted July 16, 2005 Share Posted July 16, 2005 Caution: I'm pretty much gonna be talking out of my ass and the sentences are gonna suck cause my grammer isn't top notch and I'm not on friendly terms with my dictionary/thesaurus.Ok. I do believe there is true free will to some point. Everyone has the option to do or not do depending if they have some kind mental impairment that doesn't let them think clearly. That example you gave about the rapist, there's gotta be countless people that have had criminal parents and they did nothing like them. They just use all those claims as an excuse. IIRC, I think something similiar was in the bible. One group was order (by God? I forgot) to kill the other group and all their children because the children had the gene (or something) from their parents. Total BS (IMO). As for the spiritual aspect. If you believe in fate, destiny or that God has a plan, then there's no such thing as free will. If fate or whatever did exist, everything would have happened for a reason. What you thought, what you saw. Everything. -- I don't think time travel exists. If it did, it would probably already have happened. Maybe if it were invinted a few generations later, some relative of yours would have come back to tell you to buy this or not do this. 586216375[/snapback] I believe that God has a plan for my life, but I still have free will. I believe the plan that God has for me is more of an ending. He knows when, why, and how I'll die. The stuff in-between is free will. It's more of a matter of belief anyway, because it's somewhat contradictory to say I have free will if God knows when I'm going to die. If i was to die in a plane crash, and i decided not to go on the plane, then God couldn't possibly know that I was going to change my mind, thus his plan is ruined. This not being the case, I'd have to say that we have a "form" of free will, but from my perspective, it isn't absolute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ahodes1 Posted July 16, 2005 Share Posted July 16, 2005 I believe that God has a plan for my life, but I still have free will. I believe the plan that God has for me is more of an ending. He knows when, why, and how I'll die. The stuff in-between is free will. It's more of a matter of belief anyway, because it's somewhat contradictory to say I have free will if God knows when I'm going to die. If i was to die in a plane crash, and i decided not to go on the plane, then God couldn't possibly know that I was going to change my mind, thus his plan is ruined. This not being the case, I'd have to say that we have a "form" of free will, but from my perspective, it isn't absolute. 586221010[/snapback] Personally, I believe we have complete free will over our situations. God can help control the environment around us, and in any case, its much easier to develop a plan when you already know the decisions someone is going to make. So while we have free will, He already knows what we're going to decide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolution Posted July 16, 2005 Share Posted July 16, 2005 Although I'd like to believe in free will, I'm leaning more towards physics and the simple motion of particles, hence a fate determined. Secondly, time travel into the past is impossible unless time is independent of space.... which could be possible... there's simply no way to prove it, and yes just because it interacts with space doesn't mean that it is directly interacting with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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