A fair reading is, can any choice be free. I imagine such choices exist.

Can our choices ever be free from determinants, constraints and consequences? — Truth Seeker

Sure. Just choose the other determinant, constraint, or consequence.

We don't get to create the whole world out of nothing, but we can choose amongst the options available which are constrained by various determinants, constraints, and consequences, but choice still remains.

and what does it mean, then, for free choices to exist? Free from what or free to what?

Knowledge and reason are specifically developed to constrain our choices.

from determinants, constraints and consequences — Truth Seeker

It's the genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences that determine the choices and the constraints. The consequences of the choices occur according to causality.

What evidence do you have to support your claim that choices free from determinants, constraints and consequences exist?

Knowledge and reason are specifically developed to constrain our choices. — T Clark

Nice.

If you are satisfied that all is determined, why ask about it?

Would it change something?

What evidence do you have to support your claim that choices free from determinants, constraints and consequences exist? — Truth Seeker

Easy. I make six such choices every day before breakfast. Now, I imagine you're thinking in terms of either/or. Either my choices are pure, or they are rotten with influences. I would have you think of probability chains - I believe called Markov chains - in which all of the antecedent influences, of whatever type, in combination for many possible choices simply cancel each other out.

Alternatively, I might ask what evidence you have that everyone single one of my decisions, big to small, is governed by determinants, constraints, or consequences. And among the problems with this discussion is its absolute, either/or criteria, and that it has not really been specified what a choice is or exactly how it should be understood to operate. You can, for example, argue that choice implies thought and will leading to a decision, and as such eo ipso implies influence. But that is trivial. And a concatenation of probabilities of trivialities leads to nothing, or mathematically close to nothing.

why do you think there are choices that are free from all those things? especially consequences, that seems weird. that's like... anti-physics. "every action has an equal and opposite reaction". it's directly against physics to say that there are choices without consequences.

This discussion is too free floating. Let's try this. In my socks drawer I have several pairs of socks the same color and size. I'm in a hurry to get dressed. I open the drawer, look into it, and choose a pair of socks. Free choice? I think so. If you think not, make your case. And better for the argument if yours is not altogether trivial.

Genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences don't merely influence our choices. They determine our choices, and they constrain our choices.

We are our genes. We are our experiences. So if genes and experiences determine our choices, then we determine our choices.

Nutrients and environments may have certain effects on our biology, but they cannot determine our choices because at no point do they control the sensory-motor architecture of our bodies.

We are our genes. We are our experiences. So if genes and experiences determine our choices, then we determine our choices.

Nutrients and environments may have certain effects on our biology, but they cannot determine our choices because at no point do they control the sensory-motor architecture of our bodies. — NOS4A2

We are not our genes. We are not our experiences. Our genes precede us. They contain the blueprint for our construction. Our environments allow us to live. If I were abducted by aliens and left stranded in the vacuum of space, I would die. My homeostasis depends on the environment I am in. Our nutrients are the building blocks e.g. protein that make us. Our experiences shape our neural pathways.

If you are satisfied that all is determined, why ask about it?

Would it change something? — Paine

To see if others agree or disagree with me. I would be happy to be proven wrong. If anyone can prove me wrong, please do so.

I just made a case. That's not free of consequences. That's my case.

We are not our genes. We are not our experiences. Our genes precede us. They contain the blueprint for our construction. Our environments allow us to live. If I were abducted by aliens and left stranded in the vacuum of space, I would die. My homeostasis depends on the environment I am in. Our nutrients are the building blocks e.g. protein that make us. Our experiences shape our neural pathways.

Try to point to your genes and experiences. What else in the universe besides yourself are you pointing at?

Then it appears you have a theory of everything that is at the same time a theory of nothing. If I am at all points influenced, then influenced by what? The movement of a butterfly's wing at a certain time a million years ago? And that by an equally remote swish of a fish's tail? Or do we look for some sort of direct link or connection? And how is that to be understood? Of course I'm subject to gravity; does that mean I am not in any way free? Is every living thing alive in 1913 both jointly and severally responsible for WW1?

I don't see how anything I said lead to that response from you. I have a theory of everything because I believe actions have consequences? What are you talking about?

The flutter of that butterfly's wing one million years ago: how are you bookkeeping the "consequences" of that on you?

it just feels like your words don't connect to anything. Bookkeeping the consequences of that on me? Mate, are you okay?

I insist that free voice exists, nothing beyond that. You appear to support the opposing view that for reasons of determinants, constraints and consequences (DCC), free choice does not exist. Thus you hold you are subject to DCCs. I merely mention a remote DCC in a butterfly's wing. Either you are or are not subject to the DCC of that wing. If you are not, then your choice is free with respect to that wing. If you are, then how?

There's an interesting parallel with DNA got from a Youtube video I cannot now identify - if I find I'll forward. The idea is that genetic influence from an individual ancestor stretches at most across ten-or-so generations. After that, the "noise" of too many possibilities cancels out individual influences.

Try to point to your genes and experiences. What else in the universe besides yourself are you pointing at? — NOS4A2

My sense of self is generated by my neural activities. This sense of self vanishes when I am in a dreamless sleep or in a coma or under general anaesthesia or dead.

My genes reside in my cells. They are not "me" or my sense of self.

My experiences are subjective, and only I have first-person access to them. Just as your experiences are subjective, and only you have first-person access to them.

I will discuss Quantum Mechanics just in case you are interested.

1. Quantum Indeterminacy
What it means: Certain properties (like position, momentum, or time of decay) cannot be precisely predicted — only probabilities can be assigned.

Applies to: Fundamental particles like electrons, photons, etc.

Implication: There's no hidden variable or deterministic mechanism beneath (according to standard interpretations like Copenhagen).

2. Quantum Superposition
What it means: A particle can exist in multiple states (e.g., both spin-up and spin-down) simultaneously until it is measured.

Famous example: Schrödinger’s cat — alive and dead until observed.

3. Quantum Decoherence
What it means: Interaction with the environment (like air molecules or photons) destroys superpositions by entangling the quantum system with its surroundings.

Effect: The quantum system appears to "collapse" into a definite state without needing an observer.

Why it matters: This explains why macroscopic objects don't show superpositions — the quantum effects average out or become smeared by environmental interactions.

So What Happens at the Macroscopic Level?
Neurons, brains, cats, and humans are made up of trillions of particles.

The quantum randomness of individual particles is overwhelmed by the stability and interactions of billions of them — thanks to decoherence.

Hence, we don’t see quantum strangeness at our scale — only deterministic-like classical behavior.

Philosophical Implication:
Because of decoherence, quantum mechanics doesn't give us libertarian free will, nor does it falsify hard determinism at the level of human decisions. It just replaces classical predictability with probabilistic causality, which behaves deterministically on large scales.

Can our choices ever be free from determinants, constraints and consequences [spacetime+localiy]? — Truth Seeker

No. One's "choices" can be – often are – "free from" one's awareness or volition (or awareness / volition of others). The more one is unaware of the causal / consequential path(s) of one's own "choice" the more one is unware that that "choice" is not, in fact, "free from determinants, constraints and consequences" (like e.g. flying in dreams).

IMO, I've never seen the remotest evidence the QM/QT has anytying whatsoever do to with classical-scale (local) agency. Bad physics / science –> pseudo philosophy –> dumbs down too many TPF thread topics like this lately.

If you say you can make free choices then I will ask whether you believe it is reasonable to think your choices are preceded by neural activity that leads to, gives rise to, the choices?

If you think it is reasonable to think that, then I will ask whether you were aware of that neural activity, and whether you somehow engineered it.

Also, it depends on what you mean by "free choice". Are your choices free if you are under no external constraints that prevent you from acting according to your nature? We don't create our own natures. As Schopenhauer observed: "A man can do what he wills, but not will what he wills,"

I misread the poll.

I should've said 'no'. I don't htink they can ever be free from those influences.

Can our choices ever be free from determinants, constraints and consequences [DCCs] [spacetime+localiy]?
— Truth Seeker
No. — 180 Proof

True. But in absolute terms trivial to the point of uselessness. If no free choices exist, what becomes of notions of free v. unfree choices? They're rendered nonsensical. My argument is that there are choices sufficiently free of DCCs as to be fairly considered free choices. That is, they exist. Above I offer as an example selecting a pair of socks from a sock drawer full of identical pairs of socks. The question, then, which arises from terminology and lack of clarification, a usual affliction of TPF OPs and threads, is what exactly is meant by the freedom in question.

Or, we could ask how, exactly, the DCCs influence choice in making the choice unfree. And thus the trouble with dealing with categorical absolutes: they lead toο easily to απορια.

edits for dumb grammar mistakes.

My sense of self is generated by my neural activities. This sense of self vanishes when I am in a dreamless sleep or in a coma or under general anaesthesia or dead.

My genes reside in my cells. They are not "me" or my sense of self.

My experiences are subjective, and only I have first-person access to them. Just as your experiences are subjective, and only you have first-person access to them.

Are none of these of your own unique biology, as it exists through space and time?

If no free choices exist, what becomes of notions of free v. unfree choices? They're rendered nonsensical. — tim wood

I didn't claim an "absolute ... "unfree choices". In effect, IME, our "notions" are enabled – instantiated – by our practices (e.g. "choices', habits, etc), and not the other way around as you suggest.

:up: :up: