What might this <1% of free will look like? Let's look at this theoretical situation: you're faced with deciding between two choices. All of the forces that would make you want either choice are absolutely equal. Would you be unable to choose? If you were able to choose, would that be the sliver of free will or would that just be randomness? Is randomness even possible? — A Ree Zen

No it would be "(another part of)will" deciding to chose, because you don't like indecision for instance.

We decide, "we" are "our will"... but we do not decide what our will is.

If it's will it's not free, if it's free it's not will. The concept doesn't make sense.

I agree that we are our will. However i can't agree that free will by definition is not possible. When Descartes postulated "I think, therefore I am," he proved that he himself must exist, but the existence of everything else can be doubted. If in fact you are the only thing that exists, then you must have free will, because nothing else is responsible for your behavior and thoughts other than yourself (because nothing else exists).

This leads to an interesting philosophical argument to the bigger issue of whether the reliable evidence we can consider indicates whether we should believe in free will or not. If our choices regarding what to attribute our behavior and thoughts are either they are controlled by you or something else, and only you are certain to exist, then strict logic would tell us that the thing which is certain to exist should take precedence over things which may not exist. In this sense, we would be compelled to beleive in free will, which is of course a paradox in and of itself.

I think only omnipotent being, like God can only achieve conception of "free will", omnipotence, is only truly free will, that can do literally anything, but not saying anything if one exist or not. Human do have limited mind, and perhaps our mind is constructed off brain-cells, and their functions.

But for human beings, free will is truly impossible to achieve. We do not have the whole control of our actions, mainly because our acts are related to our brain capacity, and how the brain function. If you got brain damage, your mind will change. But in general any brain dis-functions.

I don't have free will, cant fix my back-pain, or addictions with it anyways.

I don't think anybody really believes that they are the only thing that exists, even if logic would show that is the only thing we can be certain of.

But even assuming for a moment that you are the only thing that exist, how would that you be free, in the sense that you can decide who you are? What is it that is deciding who you are, if there is no pre-existing you that has already has some content, that is already defined to some extend?

I don't think anybody really believes that they are the only thing that exists, even if logic would show that is the only thing we can be certain of. — ChatteringMonkey

Going through this discussion, this statement made me uneasy. You may not be the only thing that exists, however, the entire outer Universe is egocentrically attached to your perception of existence.

Right now I'm watching at my screen and there doesn't seem to be an entire universe attached to it... so
I'm not sure what to make of that statement. Maybe if you explain it, it might make some sense, or maybe not, I don't know.

Right now I'm watching at my screen and there doesn't seem to be an entire universe attached to it... so
I'm not sure what to make of that statement. Maybe if you explain it, it might make some sense, or maybe not, I don't know. — ChatteringMonkey

The world is egocentric, that is, it revolves around your perception of existence. As an individual, I have no other possibility of perceiving the world besides my own, as you can only perceive the world through your Being.

I'm watching at my screen — ChatteringMonkey

This use of "I" that makes my proposition correct.

The world is egocentric, that is, it revolves around your perception of existence. As an individual, I have no other possibility of perceiving the world besides my own, as you can only perceive the world through your Being. — Gus Lamarch

Yes, I think I could agree with that. I don't think anything I said is at odds with that. Is there some point I'm missing?

Yes, I think I could agree with that. I don't think anything I said is at odds with that. Is there some point I'm missing? — ChatteringMonkey

I just wanted to comment because of the whole discussion, that statement of yours was the one that interested me the most.

Ok fair enough, we need not always be disagreeing.

we need not always be disagreeing. — ChatteringMonkey

Sure.

No it would be "(another part of)will" deciding to chose, because you don't like indecision for instance. — ChatteringMonkey

Probably rarely will, at least directly. One might will to flip a coin in the case of two equally good or neutral options, but the actual choice at hand is left to chance. Or, in the case of two equally bad options, one might lose one's temper and lash out, altering the choice through unintended violence against one's environment: an entirely unwilled action.

omnipotence, is only truly free will, that can do literally anything — batsushi7

Sorry, but that is just not right. Free will is about being able to choose willingly from options that are possible to the subject of free will. It's about making a choice. So the question here is: did I chose to post this (rather than not) without any impetus different from my will?

No, I did not. There is a lot of things that pushed me to do this. But in the end, it was still I who accepted that push by not going against it.

That is an interesting way of looking at it. Could life be varying degrees of having free will to choose, but only amongst predetermined options? For example, I can choose what food I want to eat, but I must first consider what is available in my area, what will give me nutrients and what will not make me sick. Then there is a host of other things that will effect my "choice," like the foods I've been introduced to and that I like through my cultural background, what foods I have been consuming recently, and how often I have been eating. Finally somewhere in there, once in a while, there may be a free will choice, amongst predetermined options.

The more we are aware of our surroundings and ourselves, the things that influence us, the stronger our will gets. If I know what is making me do this and why, I will be able to fight it. We are determined until we become conscious.

Circumstance of an overpopulated world and the society it spawned has no reflection of an absolute definition of free will. Yes, there are billions of people here and the law and society is adjusted to safely accommodate for it. Therefore, I circumstantially, have less freedom in a world or society with .. billions and billions of people as opposed to if it were just me or a few hundred or shoot even a few million.

It'd be like saying if I'm chained to a tree in a flatland prairie there's no such thing as a mountain.

The more we are aware of our surroundings and ourselves, the things that influence us, the stronger our will gets. If I know what is making me do this and why, I will be able to fight it. — Eremit

Yes, I agree with the above. There is an interesting area of study in psychology called cognitive bias. The more I studied the many common biases that everyone has, the more I could catch myself from repeating those same mistakes. But I continue to be influenced in the majority of my behaviors. I don't know if absolute free will is ever achievable, but learning about my surroundings may get me closer.

I think it depends on how you define it. The way you defined it would have me say "I don't know". The way I see it your definition implies that there are three ways something can happen:

1- Deterministically (Like kicking a football and it moving)
2- Randomly (Like in quantum physics)
3- "Free will"ly

Absolute determinism is saying that (1) is the only way something happens. Modern forms of "There is no free will" say that (1) and (2) are the only ways something happens. People who say free will exists can mean that 1,2 and 3 are the ways things happen. They can also say that even though (1) and (2) may be the only way things happen that that STILL constitutes free will (This is the compatibalist view)

All of these positions EXCEPT compatibalism debate whether or not (3) exists. Does (3) exist? I don't know. I can't really test that. I could be making what I think are "freely willed" choices but they could just be a combination of randomness and determinism. Compatibalism states that "free will" as we care about it is not a metaphysical 3rd option for things to happen but that the combinations of 1 and 2 are meaningful free will.

I lean more towards saying that: Our choices are always freely willed but only seem from the outside to be determinsitic and random. Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine that A has free will and B doesn't. You put both A and B in a room with a bunch of things to do and then you ask a scientist to tell you which one has free will. No matter how much the scientist statistically analyzes their behavior he will never be able to tell which one has free will. That is because although A has free will from the outside he acts just like a very smart robot that occasionally makes a random choice. If that is the case I would argue that ALTHOUGH the scientist will be able to create a very accurate "mental profile" of both A and B and predict with very high accuracy what they will do next from studying their behavior, that doesn't mean that A didn't have free will. I don't know if that counts as compatibalism.

We don't have "free" will, and that's easy to prove. You do what you like, right? You reject what you don't like, right? And you do everything dependant on your likes and dislikes. Sounds free, right?

The problem is, you don't choose your likes and dislikes, you just have them and devote your life to appeasing them. Where do they come from? Your genetic/biological predispositions set against your environment, which refers to education, experience, parental influences, needs, etc.

All that manifests as will. So free will is like saying free predispositions, or free conditioning. An oxymoron.

But that changes nothing. We learn. We know what is expected of us. We can change our feelings/ likes and dislikes through learning. We have language that allows us to understand complex concepts. Thus, unless you're mentally disabled by damage or disease etc, you are responsible for your actions. No free will required, just the ability to understand.

I don't think anybody really believes that they are the only thing that exists, even if logic would show that is the only thing we can be certain of.
— ChatteringMonkey

Going through this discussion, this statement made me uneasy. You may not be the only thing that exists, however, the entire outer Universe is egocentrically attached to your perception of existence. — Gus Lamarch

Perhaps we rely too much on certainty and logic to determine our relation to the universe. It’s not as if I exist as a singular, fixed central perspective, around which the world revolves, is it?

I enjoyed your argument and reading it, but I look at it a little differently.

I would argue that the conditioning and predispositions are formed by the will. We don’t just have likes and dislikes as if they dropped in our laps. They are causa sui. What I mean is, when information enters a person’s biology it becomes a part of his domain, or at any rate, of him. Insofar as a person is his biology, he literally controls what the information does from the moment it contacts his senses. Ironically, he couldn’t do otherwise.

It would be a mistake to call this control a conscious choice, but nonetheless, the self manipulates the outcome—not as a little homunculus making decisions and pulling levers, but as nothing more or less than the entire, physical organism controlling every process within its being. Even the seemingly automatic and “subconscious” processes such as the heartbeat can be found to be determined in a similar manner. They are willed, and freely, by one thing in the universe and nothing besides.

Obviously I’m equating will, body, person and self, but only because I believe they are one and the same. I think the sooner we come to admit this the better.

Obviously I’m equating will, body, person and self, but only because I believe they are one and the same. I think the sooner we come to admit this the better. — NOS4A2

When considering personal responsibility I don't think it's right to equate "will, body, person and self." I'm not responsible for being allergic to peanuts, or having a phobia of spiders, or for the behaviour of my alien hand.

Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that the conscious mind and the body are wholly separate, I also wouldn't go so far as to say that the self is identical to the body. The self is part of the body, just as some of my bones are part of my hand, but also part of my hand isn't bones, and part of the body isn't the self.

We don't have "free" will, and that's easy to prove. You do what you like, right? You reject what you don't like, right? And you do everything dependant on your likes and dislikes. Sounds free, right?

The problem is, you don't choose your likes and dislikes, you just have them and devote your life to appeasing them. Where do they come from? Your genetic/biological predispositions set against your environment, which refers to education, experience, parental influences, needs, etc. — Ron Hooft

Your conclusion doesn't follow. Even if we don't choose our likes and dislikes, it doesn't then follow that we don't choose how to behave. Likes and dislikes may influence our behaviour but that doesn't mean that we're slave to our desires.

And even if we were slave to our desires, your conclusion still wouldn't follow. If to have free will is for our will to be the cause of our behaviour, and if our likes and dislikes are component parts of our will, then for our likes and dislikes to be the cause of our behaviour is for our will to be the cause of our behaviour.

You would need to argue that our likes and dislikes (as well as other things like knowledge, experience, etc.) are separate to our wills. But what would the nature of such a will be? Some immaterial "soul" that incidentally happens to have things like likes and dislikes attached to it?

You would need to argue that our likes and dislikes (as well as other things like knowledge, experience, etc.) are separate to our wills. — Michael

Seems in opposition to

I'm not responsible for being allergic to peanuts, or having a phobia of spiders — Michael

Haven't you just asserted the exact thing you said was yet to be demonstrated? Your phobia of spiders is a 'dislike', which you claim not to be responsible for - hence you're already seeing your dislikes as something other than the 'you' which may or may not be responsible for them?

Haven't you just asserted the exact thing you said was yet to be demonstrated? Your phobia of spiders is a 'dislike', which you claim not to be responsible for - hence you're already seeing your dislikes as something other than the 'you' which may or may not be responsible for them? — Isaac

I'm not responsible for having the phobia, but I am responsible for the things I do because of it, e.g. setting fire to my house to kill the spider inside.

I'm not responsible for having the phobia, but I am responsible for the things I do because of it, e.g. setting fire to my house to kill the spider inside. — Michael

OK, but the theory goes that if the phobia makes you want to behave a certain way (and you consider yourself not responsible for it), then we have a model of factors outside of your responsibility influencing behaviour. Presumably there's no a priori reason why there should only be one such influence? So it seems, not only a valid default, but even a likely one, that the final behaviour is the net result of all the influences pulling in one direction or another...influences you've just determined are outside of your control. Afterall, the only factors we have in our model so far are such influences.

To avoid this, you'd have to introduce a new factor into the model other than a like/dislike influence.

This seems to me to be the weak spot in such an approach. This factor - free-will - seems introduced, not on the basis on an independent phenomenon, but purely to 'balance the books' of an inadequate model.

OK, but the theory goes that if the phobia makes you want to behave a certain way (and you consider yourself not responsible for it), then we have a model of factors outside of your responsibility influencing behaviour. Presumably there's no a priori reason why there should only be one such influence? So it seems, not only a valid default, but even a likely one, that the final behaviour is the net result of all the influences pulling in one direction or another...influences you've just determined are outside of your control. Afterall, the only factors we have in our model so far are such influences. — Isaac

I said as much: "Likes and dislikes may influence our behaviour but that doesn't mean that we're slave to our desires." Is there any reason to believe that these influences fully explain our behaviour? Perhaps we nonetheless have a choice, albeit one constrained somewhat by external factors.

To avoid this, you'd have to introduce a new factor into the model other than a like/dislike influence. — Isaac

It's not a new factor; it's one's will. One's will is one component that makes up the self, a self that includes other things like likes and dislikes, memories, personality, conscious thought, etc.

Is there any reason to believe that these influences fully explain our behaviour? — Michael

None. But neither is there (yet) any reason not to. Hence my comment about the inadequacy of the model.

But what I was actually interested in was how you squared the idea of not being responsible for your dislikes (phobia if spiders in this case) with the idea that likes and dislikes were synonymous with our 'will'. If you're not responsible for your likes and dislikes, then you're not responsible for your will, which makes it sound like you have no freedom there.

I'm guessing, from the above response, that your answer would be that likes/dislikes are only part of our will, but not all of it.

But if so, it seems like an odd space to leave. I'm struggling to think of a behaviour to which no likes/dislikes could be attached, and so can't see the explanatory need for this additional factor other than that you'd prefer it to be there.

I'm struggling to think of a behaviour to which no likes/dislikes could be attached, and so can't see the explanatory need for this additional factor other than that you'd prefer it to be there. — Isaac

One example would be chosing between two equally inconsequential options, like in some experiments where one is asked to chose between a red and a green button to press, repeatedly.

It was the explanatory need I was trying to establish. It would not be at all difficult (let alone necessarily impossible), to model the choice between red and green switches as mediated by minor preferences.