Do you believe in free will? why or why not?

The notion of one's will being 'free' or not relies on an unwarranted separation of the individual from the whole.

We are not 'determined by fate', we *are* fate.

idk just pulling stuff out of my ass lol

The will is a product of internal and external factors, you don't have 100% freedom, and your life is not on predetermined rails.

>internal and external factors
What do you mean internal factors? Emotions? Physical health ? Mental health? Thoughts?
Wouldn't all these things be influenced by external factors ?

I'm kind of a philosophy babby can you guys point me in the right direction

I like taoist and gnostic writings a lot and have currently been reading kierkegaard and aurelius

polite sage

This question is weird because the 'do you believe' presupposes free subjectivity.

Yes, but not all Wills are equal.

I think it's the only question absolutely not worth exploring.
No matter what the 'answer' is it won't affect anything.

The "hundred times refuted theory" of free will. No, the Consequence Argument has never been satisfactorily answered, and Agent Causal is "spooky". Might as well appeal to a God. All forms of free will other than the classic definition of "the ability to do otherwise" are irrelevant, as they are obtainable in other ways, like the dumb concept of "MR freedom".

Most belief in free will is simply the fake soil for morality trees, to use a stupid metaphor. It is only ever cared about because of its supposed strong tie to morality.

So, no, I don't believe in free will.

Is it free will if you have to have it?

>Free will
No such thing.
Your brain knows what you will do before you do it.

I remember reading about an experiment, (I can't remember the details) but by monitoring brain activity, they could see the outcome seconds before the person made the choice.

Even now, it was a specific chemical reaction that took place in your brain that led you to post this question in the specific way that you did.
You don't get to decide whether you like Marmite or not. You don't get to choose what makes you tick.

Free will is a myth. Makes me want to an-hero desu, senpai.

>You don't get to decide whether you like Marmite or not

Tastes can change though.

Yeah, and you don't get to change them. You don't get to choose.

But isn't your brain essentially you? Being that all brains are unique because not everyone would have the same chemical reaction to the same thing. They are basically one and the same

I think you can to some extent, and at the least there are many tastes you can uncover, which you might not have known you had.

No, you can't. You're not thinking about it properly.
There is no way that you can choose to like something. The very mechanism that takes place in your brain to make you ''like'' something, is out of your control. You can't will yourself to like it. It's like willing yourself to fly. You can try, you can pretend... but you can't do it.

Think of it this way:
Imagine there are two men. Their alarm clocks are set to go off at 9am. One of the men (Man A), opens his eyes rolls over and hits snooze... The other (Man B) gets up immediately and gets dressed.

What happened in Man A's brain that forced him to react differently to Man B? At the deepest level, the molecular level (or whatever else) something was different in their brains to cause them to react in a different way. This is the only logical explanation.
You might say ''Yeah, man A is lazy'', but WHY is he lazy and others aren't?
You can think about this for a long time and eventually the only thing it boils down to is: Something in his brain (a chemical reaction) caused him to respond differently from others who are not this way and have different brains.
He is this way because his brain is this way.
He does not get to choose, he only has the illusion of choice. He knows that there are many other possibilities and can imagine different outcomes but it does not matter! His brain will decide for him, it already has.

You can change the pathways that your brain operates through, see neuroplasticity and cognitive behavioral therapy.

While it isn't free will, it seems like actions wilfully done, will have unpredictable effects due to the indeterminacy of the future and the emergent complexity arising from interactions over time.

I guess I mean something like reverse manipulation, instead of being influenced by external factors (advertising etc), you instead choose to exert your will into changing yourself (might not be free, but it does have an influence).

You used all of those long words and still managed to say nothing.
Sometimes I forget that this is Veeky Forums...

>While it isn't free will,
>it seems like actions wilfully done, will have unpredictable effects due to the indeterminacy of the future and the emergent complexity arising from interactions over time.
What did he mean by this? What does this even mean, dude?

I was actually thinking of adding that i'm not sure if I used the terms correctly. Just try to see the gist of it.

And I meant that even with causality, this doesn't mean that there isn't some sort of wiggle room between the present and the future at an individual level, regardless of a lack of free will.

Are you going to complain about not having free will to choose if your body runs on petrol rather than glucose.

As long as you have the ability to learn then yes you should be held responsible for your actions.

Define "free will".

Sorry guys, I'm probably already too late to save this thread.

Shit I forgot about this thread.

Anyways, yeah. Internal factors are influenced by external factors, but that doesn't negate them, it guides them the way a river is guided by soil and stones and rain and plantlife. The water will still flow from top to bottom, from sea into land.
Sorry about all these metaphors, I'm just a metaphor kinda guy.

t. an idiot
no one is responsible for their actions. well, they are held responsible for them by society but they did not choose them.
if you are born disabled, you did not choose this, even though you still are disabled and viewed as being disabled by others.

no one can choose. there are no choices to be made.

i think he means free will as in, free will over your actions. are you in control of yourself? of your actions?
the answer is quite simply, no, you are not.
whatever makes you DO anything, whatever makes you LIKE anything, already existed in your brain. whatever makes you do something while other people do not do something, already exists. you choose nothing.

Op here, I agree with you , my train of thought at that moment caused me to word it poorly, but I think readers understood the point.
My question was if the freedom of will is a reality or just a ideology.
I think you are saying that freedom of will is not a reality therefore not worth exploring so you are rejecting the idea of free will but what I'd like to know I why...
Do you believe that one can influence himself externally to motivate one to reach certain
goals, this in turn seeming as the freedom of
will? If not why do you believe this? And if so
are the actions taken by an individual to
influence his reality (choices) his own or are
those subtle actions to reach a higher purpose
also subjected to a chaotic disorderly let say.. fate?
I reject your argument, you believe that reality
is nothing more then a subject of chemical reactions in the brain as you state, but these
chemical reactions in the brain that cause your
reactions and choices are just as susceptible to
external influence(s) (nature) as your reasoning
and logic skills are. One can say, use reason and logic through contemplation to sway his
reality in the direction he wants, in turn effecting
your chemical brain reactions as you say.

My argument is relevant in this post as well. Man A rolls over and hits snooze.. but why?
What is allowing the man to afford such an action? If Man A had, say, an important meeting that morning or a very pressing matter he must attend wouldn't he jump to action regardless of his state of mind? You can say now that well the man knew he must wake therefore his brain and "chemical reactions" caused him to wake for the important matter. I understand this as well but you must think about another perspective, what if a man whom never wakes up and always presses snooze because he has no pressing matters decides he must create a pressing matter in order to cause this reaction in his brain that will force him to wake.... wouldn't this be freedom of will?

We do what we have to do.

>i think he means free will as in, free will over your actions. are you in control of yourself? of your actions?
You are literally saying nothing with these words. They do not produce a coherent statement. Did you forget grade school English where they talk about not using I/you/me?

It seems most who advocate for the freedom of will here always resort to expressing their views through some sort of metaphor of nature. Which is great, nature seems to fully present the underlying lack of will in itself but then again we will never know, nature is nature and man is man, these two and their issues can not be compared side by side as they are completely different entities and alien to themselves. Man is simply trying to understand it's alienating nature of itself and its form through contemplation of questions like these. Or who knows maybe we're screwing things up and nature has already got it figured it out.

Free from what, causality?

We are physical, down to our thoughts. That there is a notion of some other substance, that acts in some other way, the entire premise of such duality, is a primitive delusion. I don't cling to delusions, as per what makes me...me. I cannot conceive of this unnatural unatomic undeterministic whatever.

I see it as a matter of semantics. An irreducibly complex system of determinism would be, in essence, the same thing as the human conception of free will. There is no real difference, as the only form of free will that wouldn't be able to be able to be simplified as an irreducibly complex system would be the sort of new age libertarian systems where free will exists outside of both the material world and causality in a one-way relationship.

So for all intents and purposes, I would say we do have free will, but in a manner that isn't necessarily in conflict with determinism.

correct! this is precisely what I am trying to understand, but can one, say, act out to create something he must do? This in turn establishing this 'free will'?

>I cannot conceive of this unnatural unatomic undeterministic whatever.

You just did.

>We are physical, down to our thoughts. That there is a notion of some other substance,
You contradict yourself my friend! You state this ^, but then you fail to see that you are choosing to believe this idea of yours.... wouldn't you say?

I do because I'm Roman Catholic

>One can say, use reason and logic through contemplation to sway his reality in the direction he wants, in turn effecting your chemical brain reactions as you say.
No. Whatever allows his opinion to be swayed already existed in his brain. Someone else could be told the same and they would reject it. Not by choice.
It appears as choice but there is no choice.
The man who is swayed by outside influence, his brain was perfect for that moment, for whatever it was that swayed him. He still, did not choose.

Next. Also, i'm trying to explain this in the simplest terms so that unnecessary words do not convolute what it is that I am saying.

>Fate
Fate exists but it is not magical. It is logical.

>You contradict yourself my friend! You state this ^, but then you fail to see that you are choosing to believe this idea of yours.... wouldn't you say?
Obviously not, considering I explicitly stated the very opposite? If you had an ounce of reading comprehension rather than an ocean of readiness to reply with trite garbage, I state I think as I do as per what I am, in the very post you reply to.

Nonsense. How would such a world operate? I can't even begin to imagine it.

The existence of the idea is not proof of anything, that really is some garbage tier ontology, the likes of which hasn't been relevant or un-ridiculous since the 11th century.

Or are you Roman Catholic because you do

>what if a man whom never wakes up and always presses snooze because he has no pressing matters decides he must create a pressing matter in order to cause this reaction in his brain that will force him to wake.... wouldn't this be freedom of will?
Whatever it was that would cause him to act in such a way already existed in his brain. Any response, anything at all that he does... it was already there.
No matter how minute or seemingly insignificant, it was there all along. It was HIS and his only, particular brain and it's particular structure, how the neurons fired in his head at the specific time... that caused him (in that moment, or any moment) to react in the way he did, or the way he will react.

The sentence made perfect sense. I sense you're mad from an earlier comment directed at you. I am trying to explain in the simplest terms so as to avoid misinterpretation and convolution. There is nothing wrong with explaining something in the simplest way possible.

>Nonsense. How would such a world operate? I can't even begin to imagine it.
>The existence of the idea is not proof of anything, that really is some garbage tier ontology, the likes of which hasn't been relevant or un-ridiculous since the 11th century.

Keep conceiving of it. You're doing well.

Laplace's demon up in this bitch.

He is not CHOOSING to believe this. Whatever it was that makes him believe this, already exists. It is simple: It is the way it is. He believes this because his brain fired in a particular way. He had no choice in the matter. It simply does what it wants, you cannot chose. If I tell you to blink twice now and you refuse... This does not mean you have free will. It just means the refusal was there all along. You never would have done it. And if you did do it, you always would have. You have no choices.

>I am trying to explain in the simplest terms
How is referring to the entirety of a human's composition "simple"? A simple explanation uses only clearly defined terms.

>literally describe it as a whatever
>conceiving of it
I'm actually offended by your idiocy.

Why do all the indeterminists and the like in these threads always have to premise their cause on casuistry and essentially a total lack of reading comprehension?

>You are literally saying nothing with these words. They do not produce a coherent statement. Did you forget grade school English where they talk about not using I/you/me?
I'd laugh if it wasn't so sad.

I cannot conceive of this post because it no longer exists.

>How is referring to the entirety of a human's composition "simple"?
It is simple to say there are billions of stars in the sky.
It conveys the reality exactly the same as if I was to write 6 paragraphs detailing the different types of stars, etc. Sometimes the details are not so necessary.
Since OP's question was simply: ''Do you believe in free will?'', I see nothing at all wrong with explaining it in simple terms.

Something can be outrageously complex and at the same time still simple to explain.

It conveyed exactly what I was trying to say. Stay pleb, though. Using big words when they are not needed is so Veeky Forums though, right?

Okay, how about this: How would a human behave differently if they didn't have free will?

They would act like a human who doesn't have free will.

Well, no one has free will so it would be exactly as it is now...

Aaaahhh... Discussions about the nature of free will and determinism. The go-to venue for pseudo-intellectuals to scramble for attention and a lent ear.

Okay guys, take your pick now: Will you guys play:

The determinist class, heavily equipped with "scientific facts", redundance, an absolute incapacity to get their points across and infinitely regressive logic.

Or

The uber-fucks, who are among the most stubborn creatures conceived by nature, unable to understand even the most basic of correlations; now joining the fray amply armed with Nietzche quotes, theological tomfoolery and circular logic.

I am not even mad, you guys. Hell, i am joining in too!
Now, let the memes proceed!

>Fate exists but it is not magical. It is logical.
I agree, I believe that fate... the idea that things are established as they go and a bit of contemplation are what can create this 'free will'. If an opportunity presents itself through the order of fate , then the use of thought can be applied to influence the influence a choice that your brain as you say has already determined. So in short, I dont believe it is already determined rather a initial thoughtless reaction almost like a reflex and a choice with thought behind it can change it.
agree?
You are quick to jump to your defense, only because you I think I have made you feel offended. Put in plain you simply said

I THINK, THEREFORE I AM

and nothing more. A statement that has been abused for countless generations by individuals who are ignorant to what it even means.

shut up you pseudo intellectual faggot. you're mocking people discussing shit. you're worse than anyone else in this thread, you fat fucking sperg.

Well.... what if you put a gun to the head in that situation and then ask me to blink? YOU WILL BLINK, you will say. What makes you so sure? What makes you so sure that I will refuse to blink my eyes even with a powerful incentive like that ?

>Proceeds to answer an insult with an equivalent one

Enlighten us FINE SIR! With topics so deep and complex that they are from an entirely different dimensions one where only your excellence can conjure up! Oh, how petty, how weak these discussions of this kind are, if only all the simple people who speak of things that have already been spoken of and thought of long and hard from your excellency and abandoned only to move onto higher greater topics....

How would a human behave differently if they didn't have free will?

*did

>Enlighten us, FINE SIR! With topics so deep and complex that may only be from entirely different dimensions, some from where only your excellence can conjure up! Oh, how petty, how weak the discussions of this kind are. If only all the simple people who speak of things that have already been spoken of and thought of long and hard abandoned them only to move onto higher, greater topics....

I corrected your post. No need to thank me!

>You will blink, you will say.
I would not say anything of the sort. I assure you, not everyone would blink. This doesn't mean free will exists though?
My point was: Any '"""choice""" (because it was never your choice) that you make, as I said... no matter how significant or insignificant it is, you didn't have a choice anyway. (Yes, of course you either blinked or you didn't) but it does not matter. Your brain knew what you were going to choose before you chose it.

Who knows?It is like asking what came before the big bang... Who fucking knows? You can't possibly imagine it.

I created this thread because I am genuinely interested in discussing this topic friend, not because I crave and seek some type of purposeless attention.

>If only all the simple people who speak of things that have already been spoken of and thought of long and hard abandoned them only to move onto higher, greater topics....
What makes you so sure that they're greater or higher, faggot? Because they have a penguin classics logo on the front? Because the men who wrote them have Wikipedia pages?

Suck a dick on your way out.

I think I touched on this a few posts back. I agree that your brain has predetermined reactions that one has no will to control over but external influence plays a large role in provoking those reactions, a thoughtless being would perhaps not react at all to what you were telling him but rather react to the fear of the situation like an animal would thus the brain knowing what it would do like you say, but what about a human being that has the right of thought?

I don't. Existence of free will is synonymous with a religion to me. You have to believe in some metaphysical consciousness which doesn't abide by the laws of physics, since our material matter makes us a puppet which goes through the motions, essentially. I'm a materialist for the most part but have no issue humoring the idea of free will, but I also find it humorous considering myself as an entity without free will contemplating free will without any capability to experience it.

No, because the individual has no contol over society, we are the embodiement of the mode of production's logic (in this case capitalism).
Example: if you own a business you can't be in control of the ratio of labour and machinery, you WILL HAVE to invest in machines or else go out of business. The law of value determines the logic you have to follow or else you'll be raplaced with someone more obedient of capital's rules.
The mode of production sets the goals and dictates how we act (by rewarding and punishing certain attitudes) narrowing the range of choices we actually have.

Free will can only exist in a utopia (or if you live isolated, i suppose)

Where does the idea of free will even come from?

Oh, so you are the gentleman who created this thread, for the sole purpose of discussing a matter that has been and will still be discussed to death and beyond on a thousand other indentical ones?
Why, thank you, chap! That cleared up so much for me! Here, have my eternal gratitude!
Also:
>I am genuinely interested in discussing this topic, friend.

At the very least slap an autocorrect on your shit, bro. You are already looking like a hedonist. Don't look like a dumbass too.

I was being sarcastic.
To make a point that this topic is not weak or insignificant because it did not meet the standards of a poster here.
No need to be so offensive and use profanities.

A utopia would be the absence of the need for free will.

This guy I know.

Wait, do you realize you are responding to a quotation from someone else's post?
Wow, man. do eugenics a favor, fashion yourself a spanking new noose and kick the chair.
You know, for humanity.

>OH WOW I GUESS I SHOULD KILL MYSELF BECAUSE I DON'T CARE FOR MEMETEXT ON AN ONLINE IMAGEBOARD
jeez guy, i think you're right

Your post is pretty sound, all things considered.
I do, however, have a few grips with this:

>The mode of production sets the goals and dictates how we act (by rewarding and punishing certain attitudes) narrowing the range of choices we actually have.
>narrowing the range of choices we actually have.
>choices we actually have.

Excuse me? Do you not believe free will because we have limited choices? That we can WILL to follow?

Then why not create a thread about something that isn't a troll topic?

Yes I read the post. I was just letting it simmer for a while so I could think more about it before I replied.

I guess then only traditional, omniscient God would have true free will.

At least we can conceive of it.

>I DON'T CARE FOR MEMETEXT ON AN ONLINE IMAGEBOARD
>Promptly proceeds to post on said "ONLINE IMAGEBOARD"

Wow. Where do i begin? Might as well not.

Congratulations user. You won at life. Be careful not to hit the door on the way out.

Geez, man. This rabbit hole goes VERY deep.
What is "true" free willl, though?

This arsehole here tried to derail the troll train. Don't do it. The troll train is barrelling at full speed. Hop on or get ran over.

Free will is an impetus that can't be influenced in any way.

There, a simple definition that anyone can understand so we don't have to argue about it anymore.

And? that doesn't mean I care for it, dumb cunt.

Back to you know where, you sensitive bitch.

You straight up mocked my style bro, so let me just take yours for a test drive .

You said nothing of value to refute my post, and I don't even know what it is you are even trying to refute. Your mad bro, about what? I don't know but it sure as hell ain't my thread maybe its that free will you be lacking. ;)

No limitations.

But i digress.
Free will is
>an impetus that can't be influenced in any way.

on the same way a "hard" rock is a rock that cannot be dented or damaged on any way.
That is false. a rock can be hard without being unbreakable and will can be free without being completely uninfluenciable.

facts,but that's a fairy tale for the fact that someone would have to run that utopia as well and that person would also be one who seemingly uses free will.

I just left your mom's house. You sure she wants a round two?

If it can be influenced, it can be controlled is thus not free.

>I don't know but it sure as hell ain't my thread maybe its that free will you be lacking. ;)

Oh no! a wink emoji! I have been served! It burns!!! Someone release me from this unberable pain!!!!!!!!

Jk. Go back to preschool, lightweight.

we have commodified ourselves into oblivion.

Thus why religion is shit.

Yeah, yesterday she invited me to a scat party with your parents but I had to decline because I don't want because it does want it not right?

>so we don't have to argue about it anymore

It's an interesting topic to discuss, I wonder if the shitposting is coming from a religious perspective attempting to derail the thread?

If a rock can be chipped, is it not considered "hard" anymore?