Assume the system in which humans are living in, the universe, is only controlled by physical laws

>Determinism

Quantum mechanics

The brain works like a computer. Most computers have default software on them that makes sure they don't crash or otherwise fail. Similarly, people have instinctual drives they do not need to learn. Computers are determined to arrive at their outcome just like humans. Behaviorism is a type of psychology about this. Free will is a myth and is the process of trying to decipher the possible goods and bads in this economy of money and other resources is the subjective experience of it. You still have a choice in what you do, but because of your experiences, you will chose the same option regardless of how many times you have that same situation.

determinism/randomness aren't even properly defined

>outside of your own influence.
My experiences and predispositions are a part of who I am.
Any decisions I make will be influenced by who I am, especially if we're postulating free will.
Free will isn't disproved because I can't will myself to be a different height. Being 5'11" is a part of who I am, and may influence my decisions.
My experiences, on the other hand are very much subject to my control.
I not only choose where I go and what experiences I have there, but perception itself is a subjective experience.
That's why eyewitness testimony is so unreliable, and often different witnesses have different stories.
Not because some witnesses lie, but because perception happens in the context of our own experiences and dispositions, which varies from one person to the next.

>If I have a free will, my choice is not determined by those weights.
If you have free will, your decision will be determined by those weights, but it will still be YOU making the decisions.

>I could follow the choice my brain wants most but I could also choose differently.
>the choice my brain wants most but I could also choose differently.
>the choice my brain wants most
>choice my brain wants
????
What organ would you use to make the decision besides the brain?
It's like asking "Can I choose something different than what I choose?"

Completely off topic, but I just want to say that Secret of Mana is an amazing game.

You (the conscious being) who observes does not choose. You (the observer) come to being through the neural path ways of your brain. The choices this neural network takes is governed by the neural architecture, the amount of electrolytes present, the amount of endogenous and exogenous substances present, and on the bottom of all of this, physical laws.

A ball which rolls down a hill does not change its path from itself but only due to external influences. Even if those influences are in a localization within the ball (like a hole or a region with higher densities). The ball rolls down the hill and is maybe slightly turning to the left.

You assume that because it is your neural architecture who decides which way it wants to go, therefore you (or even the neural architecture) has a free will. But this is governed by physical laws

>Physical laws.

Interesting. Now what does quantum physics say regarding determinism at particle physics level again?

There is nothing deterministic about artificial neural networks. They are entirely probabilistic in nature. Actually the research regarding to neural networks grinded to a halt when people were so stubborn they stuck with binary decision functions for training. It was first when they started with continous sigmoids people started to be able to design networks which learned.

But then you'd be assuming that the mind is restricted to the brain, and you wouldn't be considering the mental plane (see Mary's room)

I dont mean determined what the neural net will do, I think the universe is probabilistic and therefore also the output of the neural net.

What I meant was, that the output is determined (or governed) by physical law. Which are on the quantum level probabilistic.
But probability does not permit free will

Can you make the conscious decision to ride to the nearest nail salon on a tie-dye skateboard and pelt the customers with gummy worms? Yes you can.

Does that imply the existence of at least some kind of free-will, regardless of any circle-jerking about the nature of causality? Yes it does.

>Most dictionary definitions stress "one's own discretion".
The OP already addressed this. Use your head. Te experience of choice is not necessarily actually having one, you're just experiencing the process as you shift through states on the way to a potential ultimate conclusion. Based on memory and elf awareness, you may also have the means to k now in advance that you don't have the means to find an answer, or make a proper choice.

It's using machinery that is likely not controlled by the self, deterministic or otherwise.

The OP also never framed anything as "sheeple", so maybe you ought learn how to not be a braindead degenerate and engage with a topic properly. Dim twit.

>the neural architecture, the amount of electrolytes present, the amount of endogenous and exogenous substances present, and on the bottom of all of this, physical laws.
All of this is a part of who I am.

>A ball which rolls down a hill does not change its path from itself but only due to external influences.
And that makes it completely different than a human being.

>I think the universe is probabilistic
>What I meant was, that the output is determined (or governed) by physical law.

What you mean is: "If i was comfortable with vague, irreproducible results, I would have studied biology, but I like absolute answers, with simple, mathematical models that always apply in an absolute sense. That's why I studied physics."
Embrace the fuzzy, vague nature of reality, and not the cold, sterile void that appeals to your sense of ordnung.

>>Most dictionary definitions stress "one's own discretion".
>The OP already addressed this.
No, the OP moved the goalposts by insisting on a strawman version of the definition of free will.
"If only I can define it specifically enough, I can insist it doesn't exist!"

Robert Heinlein used to do the same thing with altruism (and rights).
He would define altruism in a way that couldn't possibly be satisfied, then complain that there wasn't any "true" altruism.

(Individual reactions could differ, as always

They would think how strange that is and go on doing what they must do...

I went over this in the last thread with someone. At such a point you might as well abandon the phrase "free will", as it was created within a framework that is no longer necessary nor relevant. Just like the concept of "life".

There are better ways to frame it like control, degree, affordance, and arbitrary scale.

These threads are always so goddamn stupid.

Yes, on a purely scientific, objective sense, one can conclude reasonably that free will does not exist. Its impossible to prove, sure, but one can come to the conclusion.

Here's the thing though. Lets say free will is nonexistent. Who cares? So what?

Humans still act and think as if free will exists. Humans still make their own decisions by their own "free will." Whether free will exists or not has no practical ramifications, and for that matter, its a philosophically pointless question as well.

We think, therefore we are. Are those thoughts determined by the past? Almost certainly, but since we can't see into the future, its a meaningless point.

To further advance my point, you asked
>What would then happen to such a system (for example human society on earth) in which a great fraction of those agents would recognize that they indeed have no free will?
LITERALLY NOTHING.
Human society would exist as it has always existed and absolutely nothing would change, except the proportion of philosophically illiterate fucks talking about free will all the time would increase.

Seriously, we get at least one of these threads a day. How about we all just shut the fuck up about it

This.

>Yes, you are right. But what's the point of arguing whether or not we have free will.

A commitment to finding the truth and sharing it, perhaps? Also, a worldview more in line with reality.

>Are you able to make your own thought?

Is there a "me" independent from my thoughts?

>Here's the thing though. Lets say free will is nonexistent. Who cares? So what?

So, you know that your conditioning/environment is more important. There is no a magical thing called "free will" to save you from bad conditioning/environment.

It could cause you to be more careful.

I've seen free will used as an excuse for abusing drugs. "Oh, I can drink ten beers and two two lines of coke and a few dozen milligrams of speed. I have FREE WILL to CONTROL MYSELF, no matter how fucked up I am".

I've also seen free will used as an excuse to not help the poor. "Well, he is poor? If only he had used his FREE WILL to make BETTER CHOICES. He doesn't deserve help. Let him suffer".

>At such a point you might as well abandon the phrase "free will",
This is Veeky Forumsence and math, not /sem/antics.

Hey, fuck you degenerate gutter trash shiteater, okay?

>Can you make the conscious decision to ride to the nearest nail salon on a tie-dye skateboard and pelt the customers with gummy worms? Yes you can.

If the thought to do that doesn't occur to me, then no, I can't.

>If we then define free will as the capacity for an agent to make choices in which the outcome has not been determined by past events, we can conclude that free will is not possible either in a deterministic or probabilistic universe.
Yes, that is true. But why would you define "free will" in that silly way? That is not what the intuition means, and it's a retarded notion.

If you try to analyze a vague and confusing notion, and you declare a particular definition for what the notion is supposed to mean, and then you conclude interesting things from that definition, that does not mean you have concluded interesting things about the vague concept. Instead, you have concluded interesting things at a particular attempt to flesh out the concept that may or may not be sensible and coherent. This conclusion has very nearly zero relevance unless you have a very strong case that the definition you cooked up is the one we should be worrying about. Garbage in, garbage out.

On the topic of free will, the question of what the topic is supposed to mean is the whole meat of the topic in the first place. By positing a definition and then concluding things based on it, you are not clarifying the concept; instead, you throw the entire debate, by taking for granted that which the whole discussion is about.

Fuck off. These threads do not belong on Veeky Forums.

>Yes, that is true. But why would you define "free will" in that silly way? That is not what the intuition means, and it's a retarded notion.

Many people have incoherent, "silly" conceptions of free will--such as the idea that you can act contrary to your genetics and conditioning. Millions of people believe this.

It's a part of why a lot of people support hurting those who have done wrong, not in the name of the greater good, or in the name of reconditioning, but in the name of desert. "They could have done otherwise".

Why not?

Also, the originator of the term "free will" was Saint Augustine, who argued against determinism, positing non-determinsitic "free will" and fundamental moral responsibility of human beings.

That definition is literally copied 1 to 1 from the second paragraph of wikipedia. I choose this definition to inhibit any discussion of free will in the context of your experience and genetics. This view is reduced to biology and neuroscience. But the neuroscientists version of no-free-will is a completely different one from the chemists. In the biologists/neuroscientists version free will is theoretically possible.
In the chemists view it is absolutely not possible due to everything following natural laws. There is absolutely no mechanism by which I could have a free will, by which I could choose even arbitrary stuff like "which of my 10 fingers will I move now". In the biologists' view, the choice which finger I will move could possibly be free because the correlation with genetics will be minimal. That's also the reason why neuroscientists did studies whether humans could freely choose which hand to move. And they concluded that this choice was done 500ms before the conscious decision was made.

I didn't want to discuss this, because it was shown again and again that in a biologists/neuroscientists view the consciousness could not really choose freely because of genetics, environmental influences and so forth.