discussion Do we have Free Will?

[GentleDance]

Free will as in the idea that in this present moment, several futures are possible and your free will plays a role in selecting which future will become reality.

 

Free will seems to be incompatible with the laws of nature according to present data, there's discussion about free will in neurology, the discussion being do we subconsciously make decisions before we become consciously aware of having made one. Research at least suggests that our conscious self does not initiate all behavior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will#Free_will_as_illusion

 

According to physics, all the laws of nature that we know so far work with differential equations, these laws have the common propriety that if you have an initial condition at one moment in time (for example the exact details of the particles in your brain and all your brain's input) you can calculate what happens at any other moment in time from those initial conditions, meaning that the history of the universe and everything single detail was determined already at the big bang, we're just watching it play out.

 

Do you think we as humans have free will? 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by GentleDance

[liam13]

yes, because i occasionally be dreaming about me having s*x with whoever or doing whatever and they feel real asf, meaning my variants in other universes are living their best lives while im here suffering meaning other universes' existence are very much possible and i do have free will. idk bout others tho

[apasionata]

Idk but I do know Atrl is creepingly becoming like *that* part of YouTube and it's unsettling

[Zymphonic]

No.

[queenoftheclouds]

If that's true then it was confirmed during the big bang that Taylor Swift becomes the biggest solo singer and has to re-record her first 6 albums?

I don't think so. I think you can plan your life to a certain event and that's it. Things will happen that change your state of being and the decision we make or how things work out.

[EtherealCat]

we have no free will because there is so much things influence how we make our decision means we cant make any truly independent decision

[PopKills]

We‘re as free as we think we are 

[getBusy]

No, but we do have Free Willy. Close enough?

[SecretSecret]

Yes. Even if everything we do is already determined, we do not experience it that way. As people, we make choices. They can be influenced by social conditions or by nature, but that doesn't change the fact that we actually make those decisions. 

Who cares if we really have free will or not? I experience the world as a person who makes choices; I don't really care if there are cosmic laws that rule over me, because my experience is still the same.

[Obsession]

ATRL desperately needs a pop girl to make something shake quickly

[illia]

1 hour ago, apasionata said:

Idk but I do know Atrl is creepingly becoming like *that* part of YouTube and it's unsettling

What do you mean?

[GentleDance]

5 minutes ago, Johnny said:

This is widely debated by neurophilosophers and the jury is out on this topic, and I find arguments hinge on what our interpretation of the term 'free will' even means. OP's argument is interesting but ultimately misguided in my opinion--theoretically, it is possible to represent the conditions of the world in a (virtually) infinitely complex vector of dimension I that is transformed N times (n the number of state transitions every x unit of time required to reach present day from an initial state) by a complex equation that transforms each dimension accurately to form an I x N matrix, but the fact of that matter is that no consciousness performs this task, and so no consciousness determines the world and where it goes at each state transition. Therefore, musing about free will implicitly points to the free will of the brain itself, the seat of the mind. Similarly, the state of a body can be represented by a matrix as before, say Ibody x Nbody, which is determined by the brain, which processes inputs from an external world and computes the state transition every Nbody times. And we know from empirical research and dynamical systems theory in neuroscience that this is indeed true at least on a more tangible levels of analysis. 

 

So yes, we have free will when discussing it from the point of the only reliable frame of reference we have, pointing to our free will as minds and brains. Free will of the mind relative to the universe, is a different argument, but ultimately futile unless we can surmise that a consciousness emerges from the universe that wills state transitions to individual minds. 

Brains are made of particules, we can derive from the laws of the consituants what the whole object does, at leats if one does not deny reductionism, consciousness probably doesn't save free will if it comes from our brains 

[bliaz]

15 minutes ago, Johnny said:

This is widely debated by neurophilosophers and the jury is out on this topic, and I find arguments hinge on what our interpretation of the term 'free will' even means. OP's argument is interesting but ultimately misguided in my opinion--theoretically, it is possible to represent the conditions of the world in a (virtually) infinitely complex vector of dimension I that is transformed N times (n the number of state transitions every x unit of time required to reach present day from an initial state) by a complex function that transforms each dimension accurately to form an I x N matrix, but the fact of that matter is that no consciousness performs this task, and so no consciousness determines the world and where it goes at each state transition. Therefore, musing about free will implicitly points to the free will of the brain itself, the seat of the mind. Similarly, the state of a body can be represented by a matrix as before, say Ibody x Nbody, which is determined by the brain, which processes inputs from an external world and computes the state transition every Nbody times. And we know from empirical research and dynamical systems theory in neuroscience that this is indeed true at least on a more tangible levels of analysis (e.g. motor neurons ensemble activity to neuromuscular junctions invoking motor patterns, and even higher levels of analysis such as motor cortex). 

 

So yes, we have free will when discussing it from the point of the only reliable frame of reference we have, pointing to our free will as minds and brains. Free will of the mind relative to the universe, is a different argument, but ultimately futile unless we surmise that a consciousness emerges from the universe that "wills" state transitions to individual minds. 

[John Slayne]

i understand why people say no and they could be right but what's important to me is that i feel like i have free will. from my point of view it seems like i can decide to do things on my own and it's not predetermined, sort of like a first person video game. so like... even if there's scientific evidence that i don't have free will, so what? it does not change how i move around/perceive the world 

[GentleDance]

12 minutes ago, Johnny said:

But when discussing free will, whether implicit or not, the precondition is a consciousness to will transitions. Without a consciousness, the concept of free will is certainly null, as there is no "will" to be discussed in the first place. If we observed meteor showers in space, they collide and move, and the conditions could be modelled mathematically in a similar to way as I described before. But we don't speak about this level of observation as "free will". We don't suppose that rocks have a free will of their own due to a lack of a vessel through which to carry out such a will--a consciousness that emerges out of neural activity to self advocate. My discussion emerges, again, from one of frame of reference. 

I'll be frank and say that I don't get your point, what do you mean by "will transitions"? 

[Riverbank]

6 hours ago, EtherealCat said:

we have no free will because there is so much things influence how we make our decision means we cant make any truly independent decision

It doesn't mean you can't do it tho

[Alldeezy]

no

[DamianSolo]

Yes. You can do anything you want to do. Having free will doesn't mean being free of resistance or consequence, however. Complacency is what ultimately stifles free will; and that's something I'm, personally, struggling with. I'm too comfortable to take a leap of faith, but that's quickly changing.