Do we have "Free Will" or is it an illusion?

by Rod P 134 Replies latest members private

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  Rod P

  Little Toe,

  You think that we can rely on Reality for the evidence?

  This presupposes that any one of us on planet earth actually knows what "Reality" is.

  Let us represent "Truth and Reality" as an Elephant. Three men who are blind each have a hold of this elephant. One holds on to the tail. One has his hands around the elephant's leg. The third is holding on to the ear.

  They are asked to describe this elephant. The first one says "this elephant is thin, round and curly". The second one says "No, this elephant is big and round like a tree". The third one says "No, this elephant is thin, flat and wide." ..........And we petty men prat on about an "Elephant" not one of us has seen.

  Here is another analogy about "God", but we can substitute "Reality" for God:

  Trying to understand God (Reality) is a bit like an amoeba peering up from the other end of a microscope, trying to understand the sex habits of the scientist.

  How then, can we rely on this so-called "reality" for the evidence of whether we have "free will" or not? There is no "reality" which we can claim to comprehend with certainty, accuracy and completeness, and therefore we have but mental models, or "Reality Modalities" to which we individually subscribe. In the end, it really is a matter of faith, whether we like it or not. And so the question of Free Will cannot be resolved by an appeal to "reality.

  Rod P.
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  OldSoul

  Trevor: Logically if we are not able to be will-free then we have, by default, lost the right to claim we have freewill.

  And in a purely logical world this would work out nicely. However, we do not live in a purely logical world.

  Responses guided by instinct, genetics, and emotion, while often illogical reactions, win out more often than not. Does that mean we do not have the capacity to choose differently? No. That most people do not choose differently in no way proves they cannot. Will is volition, which requires opposition to exist.

  Terry's argument better applies to "will" as a concept than it does to free will. Free will is the capacity to exercise volition despite pressures, not in the absence of pressures. I suspect Terry knows that already. I have wondered, on occasion, if he makes sport of this type of discussion.

  Respectfully,
  OldSoul
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  LittleToe

  Rod:That would be my argument
  It was myself that called into question Trevors comments, on that score.

  DDog:
  Do you mean "desire"?
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  Qcmbr

  I like to think that free will is the ability to see consequences and choose them. To me free will is not the ability to choose at the point of action because thats the synthesis of reaction, instinct and character (ie its too late to ponder the consequences and normally our brain makes the choice for us.)
  
  Free will is won not just an inate gift ie a baby doesn't exercise much choice but that rapidly changes! No matter what the situation our response to it can be altered by exercising free will before it (choosing to sacrifice one behaviour for another - the basis of training in any discipline - leads to an increased capacity in that favoured behaviour at the expense of other options.) Free will increases in the direction of our expertise and decreases in our areas of lowered specialisation.
  
  Free will can be ignored and we can allow ourselves to follow the masses and subsume our will to it (much of the criticism of religion) in a lazy way or we can become neurotic looking for potential issues and consequences before any action is taken. Free will lives best in the middle path where some choices we don't mind leaving to the crowd, some choices aren't important to overanalyse and plan for and then we are left with a core of critical decisions that if approached in a goal orientated way will make big differences in how things turn out by planning ahead and making decsions using rationale, faith, intuition or whatever we choose to favour as our inner choice making process.
  
  IMHO
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  Deputy Dog

  LT

  OK, is "will", "desire" and, or "want" the same?

  I'm not sure that humans can "will" anything, Jesus said, simply desiring some things can be sin. It seems to me that "will" has no power at all, to do anything.

  D Dog
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  trevor

  OldSoul

  I see the point you are making and agree that we do not live in a totally logical world. You wonder on occasion, if Terry makes sport of this type of discussion. Well I guess I also do to a degree and enjoy playing mind games. Despite the arguments I have put forward, I still secretly believe that we do have a degree of free will.

  When someone acts against odds and makes an unexpected choice showing great magnanimity, we see this as a triumph of the human spirit. Perhaps in some strange way this how we prove our worth as humans.

  I am at heart a mystic and believe in the human spirit. I have had too many unexplainable experiences and premonitions to believe that the world is as logical as many choose to believe. The sum totally of our existence is too vast to be rationally understood. But I feel it can be comprehended at a deeper level.
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  Deputy Dog

  The reason I ask this question, is in regards to the paralytic. The paralyzed can have the same "desires" as anyone, but has a very limited ability to carry them out. Does he have the same "free will" as anyone else? D Dog
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  trevor

  Rod P

  How we individually perceive an elephant is not to me a reality test. The existence of the elephant is the reality.

  I agree that we cannot truly know reality. One of the comments I made on page 2 of this thread was - Our own history is a part of reality that is to say it took place in reality.

  To examine the exercise of free will, this is a good place to start because our own actions are also a reality, regardless of how they are perceived by us or others.
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  Rod P

  Trevor,

  You say that "to examine the exercise of free will.... is a good place to start because our own actions are also a reality, regardless of how they are perceived by us or others"

  But here again, when we look at the choices we have made, the so-called exercise of free-will, aren't we perceiving our own "reality" thru the coloured lenses of our built-in biases and ignorances? And aren't others who look upon us and our choices likewise seeing this thru their skewed perceptions?

  Yes, the "Elephant" is the reality. The point is, we do not see the "whole" and so we are deficient in our perceptions of reality. Therefore, we can not "Know" anything for sure. And this holds true for "free will". The fact that all of us here on this thread are even debating whether we have free will or not tells me that we simply do not know for sure whether we do or do not have free will. Therefore, we are left with our own opinions and interpretations, which we must adopt on faith, and not on a true understanding of reality.

  This is tantamount to saying: "If you think you have free will, you're right, you do." "If you think you do not have free will, you're right, you do not." Believing is seeing, and that's the reality here.

  Rod P.
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  darkuncle29

  Nothing is Absolute.

  Surely you see this is an absolute statement......don't you?

  Yes, and that was my pointless point. I should have put a winky smily after it but got lazy. Instead of argueing over it, why not just enjoy the ride?