People still think free will exists

Then by your definition, a robot dog has free will as well.

One could define free will extremely simply and still push the Hollywood dogma about it. e.g. Even a simplistic robot has free will because it's the robot itself that decided. Of course that is common sense, and such a definition doesn't make people here smarter.

You say "You live in a physical world" without providing evidence. I say "I fucked your mother last night" without providing evidence.

First of all, "past" is just an abstract [math]\textit{idea}[/math], just like "future". Both exist in the present; the only state that exists concretely.

Secondly, making decisions by using my knowledge doesn't mean that the decisions were not made by me. Just like if I draw something with a pencil, the drawing is still made by me, even though an external tool (the pencil) was used in the process.

All dogs are robots. The brain is a biological computer.

Touch your arm, that's your evidence. You either live in a physical world or a simulation of it, which would have the exact same rules as a physical one.

The brain is a physical component and doesn't have the capability to alter the laws of physics. Which makes it bound by the rules of determinism that govern every other physical thing in this universe.

It's your choice to not believe in free will. No need to harass others about it.

the only "argument" in favour of free will is claiming materialism is self-defeating, that is, if you accept materialism than truth values we assign to statements are merely results of chemical reactions in the brain and as such untrustworthy. So you can't obtain true knowledge of anything including that materialism is true.

For me that's just sophism derived from an unreachable standard of "knowledge". But it's probably in that direction that a philosophyfag would argue.

Not harassing, just encouraging people to deeply think about it

I think that makes no sense. Of course I could've done something differently, in the sense that it was open to me as a possibility at the time. But if you would actually reset the universe to that point, I would do the same, since I had decided at that time that doing it that way was the best for me (based on some rational or not-so-rational thought process). Postulating some random/magical process that would make me behave differently each time when I'm in the exact same situation seems rather the opposite of "free will".

For 'free will' to exist the possibility of something else being the outcome with the same past should exist as well, but it doesn't as you said, it'd create the same. The decision-making process is there, but the outcome is the only outcome possible, nobody could've chosen something else.

Umm, sorry sweetie, but that's not evidence of anything. I've touched and felt stuff in my dreams and those sensations were purely a figment of my imagination.

Same goes for you; unless you provide evidence for the physicality, your arguments are invalid. Someone might as well talk about the spirituality of the world and that humans have souls, and that would be as valid argument as yours when there are just claims thrown around without backing facts.

>non-deterministic universe

fucking kek you copenhagen regurgitating retard

I'm not really arguing against the existence of free will, I just think, when defined in that way, it's a nonsensical concept.

To say there is no free will is to say there is no morality. How about I steal from you and not face any legal consequences since I was merely reacting to the infinite outcomes that happened before me? You must never get angry or sad whenever you see something displeasurable on the news because it's just the outcome of pure luck and no one is at fault for anything, right?

legal consequences are a way of others to react to your damaging behavior, doesn't even need to have anything to do with morality.

I like you.

If everything is deterministic then what's up with quantum mechanics?

Doesn't that imply atoms take all routes but end up taking the shortest or something, I wouldn't know, haven't studied that yet.

"Someone once asked me: Why do you believe in free will?
I replied: Because I cannot choose to do otherwise."
– James Champagne

From a purely materialistic viewpoint, a human consciousness and identity is the sum of the computations performed by its neurons at a given time. Assuming these computations are deterministic, free will does not exist. However, neuron behavior is ultimately determined by quantum phenomena, which are, as far as I understand, currently considered random.

What interests me the most is how free will in action looks like physically.

Don't we have a consciousness to counteract our instincts when necessary?

So what exactly happens when we "win" over our instincts and what happens when we "lose"?

After all despite free will many people still act against their better judgement. Why?

You're implying that your instincts aren't part of your consciousness, which is obviously false. Your consciousness inhabits a primate brain, in which instincts are deeply rooted.

It is not about random stuff -- it is about us. We can not calculate both coordinates and impulse of a particle. Sure, this does not mean that Universe can not do that thing either.

If there is an alien afterlife, it will involve a considerable amount of crying over the word "free."

Good job sidestepping all the moral implications. Do moral situations affect you yes or no?

Yes, this part of humanity is quite bothersome. Our consciousness mainly takes place in the cortex, i.e. the outermost part of the brain. Overriding deeper routines/"instincts" can be extremely difficult.

good post

discrediting one path determinism doesn't say much about the existence of free will, it only discredits the notion that your actions are determined.

what you do need to discredit is materialism, that probably would make for a better argument since we don't have a good working definition of free will

user, he's making fun of you.
If you don't believe in free will, then you believe you don't have the choice to believe or not.

Most people can't control their emotions, so they say it's immoral to do what makes their emotions go crazy. So then we have morality determined by the uncontrollable.
As far as I can tell you're accidentally supporting the argument against free will.

I define my own reality. My choices are a product of that reality. I define my choices.

magic
*snort* *snort*

By being reducible to physical phenomena.

you don't choose what to believe in, you either do or you don't.

Morality and goodness in humans is just another trait already "programmed" into human beings through evolutionary pressure for cooperation. That's why selfish humans are so fucking shunned by society they are "deemed" bad humans. That good feeling you get from helping somebody out? Evolution. Cooperation/Morality is a survival trait, embedded into most humans from the day they are born. You don't choose this.

0/10 I don't even know where to start.

If you want to take the evolutionary route, do I need to remind you that men who aquire resources are desirable to women? You know the whole providing for the family thing?

Also, socialization is not evolution. Unless you can show me a gene or region of the brain for sharing, it's socialization. You think 4 year olds instinctively share their toys?

>morality is a survival trait
Gee, there sure is a lot of moral rape and murder in the animal kingdom, huh?

Free will is a matter of perspective.

You, as an (inter)actor with other (inter)actors and/or the environment, has the possibility to use any tool that's given to you innately or by induction (environment/other (inter)actors and thus becoming a tool for you). It's not about the choice you made, it's about the library of possible choices you can make; the potential usability of your toolset if you will.
The fact that you can make a choice from all these options and persue, or not make a choice at all is pretty much free will.
Why still make music when you're deaf? (Beethoven)
Why paint when you're blind?
Why do something suboptimal when there is a clear optimal choice? Why opt for suicide?

It's not because the basic block of the brain is deterministic in nature -and I might even debate that-, that the sum of its parts has that same property, right? Are we just some blobs or protein, sugar, fat and nucleic acids? No, damn it, we're walking discovering, interacting, moving machines!

>be philosopher
>"free will MUST exist, because if it didn't, I would feel kinda off"
>proceed to think up a quadrillion different hypotheticals as to how it could be possible
>all of them unfalsifiable

I have a question for those more versed in these topics. How can we know that reality is deterministic or not? Causality is easily observed. Events cause other events, but I understand that this purely deterministic viewpoint struggles with quantum mechanical uncertainty. I know absolutely nothing about quantum mechanics as I've never taken a class on it and have never studied it at all. But how is this uncertainty verified? Isn't it always possible that events that are seemingly random by observation are simply caused by some other yet understood phenomenon?

I've heard many people talk about quantum mechanics as the final nail in the coffin of determinism, but I don't understand how we can be certain of this uncertainty. How could someone possibly prove that? If I'm uncertain of some measurement how can I know that uncertainty is intrinsic and not simply due to my lack of understanding about the event? Isn't it always possible that there exists some factor that we simply have not accounted for, or cannot currently observe? And how could we possibly demonstrate that we'd accounted for everything?

cuck