But what really is the question of free will? Is it a question of the paths we take and if we had a choice on taking such a path or are choices illusory too?

How could a choice be illusory when by deciding to take it we make it real? For example John doesn’t have a car. He has two choices buy a car or don’t.

Buying a car has now created a reality in which John has a car.

From this angle it only makes sense to talk of free will in terms of events that come into being and then applying the question post fact as to whether John buying a car was in fact inevitable.

I don’t know John or the choices he is facing yet his choices will impact me and my choices later down the line or at least they have the potential to.

In any case choices affect future reality (e.g. I could crash into johns brand new car some day)

It would make sense to talk of non-choice here too. The choice of not buying a car still is very much a choice.

But does it affect reality ? Yup I could run John over whilst he is crossing the road.

Non-choices are completely different to choices. Imagine choice being two forks in a road and non-choice just a straight road.

The question of free will then only applies when we come to that fork in the road.

Objections to the bit in bold ?

Non-choices are completely different to choices. Imagine choice being two forks in a road and non-choice just a straight road.

The question of free will then only applies when we come to that fork in the road.

Objections to the bit in bold ? — invicta

Yes, objection. Choice is always conflict, and conflict is the end of freedom.

It is always will that is supposed to be free, but my experience is the opposite. Freedom for me is pottering about in the garden doing the next job that comes along, not choosing, not deciding or thinking, but responding to the situation -- weeds to the compost, weed roots into a bag to rot in the dark, stones to a bucket, litter to another bag. Tidying, tidying... Freedom is the road, not the junction; planting the seeds, not browsing the catalogue.

The junction imposes a decision, so one has to make a determination, and then one is free again.

It is clear to me that I made a choice (on creating this topic) — invicta

You made the same choice that everyone makes, to conjoin the same misbegotten pair freedom and will. Except it was not a choice. Although you could have separated them, you never considered it, because the dilemma was already formed, and the impossibility of either free will or determinism already fixed. Although your two posts at least open the possibility of a surgical separating of, not freewill and determinism, but freedom and wilfulness.

Yes. Choice is always conflict, and conflict is the end of freedom. — unenlightened

How so? Imagine a society where only one type of car was available to it’s citizens. Red Model B

By your argument a citizen in this society would be free by fact of not having to make a choice what model car to buy.

I argue the opposite. Imagine now a society where various models of cars are available, the citizen here can choose any model, colour he likes.

This choice is the real freedom for instead of colour of car being the variable, it is price. For in the former society that is fixed and the citizen would have no choice but to pay that price.

By your argument a citizen in this society would be free by fact of not having to make a choice what model car to buy. — invicta

That's right. As it is, the poor chap must choose between various compromises between fast, safe, comfortable, reliable and affordable. One buys a car and then one is stuck with it. One minute of freedom and years of tyranny? And why does one want a car? - it promises the freedom of the road, apparently, but it does not deliver.

Why do you value this choice? It is a fake, because whatever you choose, the car has already been made, not to your specification but to someone else's. The one you want does not exist, and you could not afford it if it did.

Do you feel deprived that there is only one voltage of mains electricity available? Of course not; it is a boon, because all your devices will work anywhere. You don't have to think about it until you travel abroad. And that is freedom.

Nobody needs a choice of 100 different brands of factory made biscuits. It's oppressive and a burden. Have one of my home made biscuits, and next week, I'll make some different ones. The freedom of the consumer's choice is a fake freedom that produces the opposite, addiction.

Well let’s use shoes as another example. In certain communist tyrannies the lack of choice was real. In some countries jeans were not even allowed as were seen as a western thing.

Now that’s tyranny and actually occurred in plenty Eastern bloc countries. But thats communism for you. Lack of choice which is what I’m hinting is the very definition of such a system.

Choice (consumer choice) is in fact a natural trait of capitalism.

If you’re critiquing that then that’s fine.

@unenlightened oh and please try not to lecture me on the merits of communism over democracy and liberalism.

Communism was tried, tested, failed. Cuba, China Russia all failed and who suffered ? The People.

The very people that communism was meant to empower.

The question of free will then only applies when we come to that fork in the road. — invicta

Yes. A driverless car, approaching a fork in the road, would normally plow straight ahead. But with natural or artificial intelligence, it could choose to take the fork that leads to its intended destination. Unless of course the destination has not been pre-selected by an intentional agent. :smile:

The question of free will then only applies when we come to that fork in the road. — invicta

The situation often is that, for example, given the choices A and B, B is chosen.
If you put up another choice C, so that there are A, B and C and the decision changes to C this is a _clear_ indicator that B was never really wanted. The whole "choice" abstraction is something that may apply to roads but already cancel or restrict freedom. "Having to decide" is a crystal-clear indicator that the choice is not free. The car standing on the road in front of the fork may be the last outpost of freedom a rational individual might have. "I want neither A or B. I'll just stay here". This is why most enforcement of decisions is usually done with clauses that say what will happen if no active decision is made. That way the exercise of power can disguise itself as free decision. It is clearly said that an active decision is not really needed. This is like the judge who lets you freely sign a piece of paper or go into jail until you do so. That is power of definition: If anyone else would do that to you it would be coercion. If the state does it, it is your free choice and you can be free in jail.
Such argumentation was seen by the German Ethics Council when discussing a vaccine mandate for Covid 19 - of course it was not "jail" there but the restriction on participation in public life.

It happens I have to do one thing out of two and I don't prefer or want any of the two to an extent I could just flip a coin to chose my destiny. But then I would feel unfree somehow...

It is clear to me that I made a choice (on creating this topic) — invicta

How do you know you could have chosen to do anything else other than what you have done? And if you don't know it, what grounds do you have to assume that you could have not created this topic?

Because I’m a thinking rational and lazy creature and the thought of not bothering also occurred to me.

Yet here we are

So you can't answer either of my questions?

Seems you need me to elaborate.

Before creating the topic I asked myself should I bother? This being a free will topic I realised, anticipated and responded with the creation rather than non-creation of the topic.

The matter of creating this topic was a conscious choice to do so as it was not to do so.

The matter of creating this topic was a conscious choice to do so as it was not to do so. — invicta

Sounds like an ex post facto rationalization to me. You don't know you had a "choice", just assume – confabulate – it, no? :chin:

Nope I really did ask myself should I create this topic or not.

You are querying my knowledge and I’m saying I did KNOW I had a choice.

Rationalisation occurred prior to its creation.

Should I …shouldn’t I …that’s all the rationalisation that occurred in my mind.

Are you calling me a liar ?

Not at all. All that means to me is 'you assume – not know – you chose to choose' to post this "free will" topic. I just don't to see any grounds for you assuming this (or to assume you "know" this).

Why do you write like that ? It’s confusing the crap out of me :lol:

All organisms are reactionary creatures, the physical world is the cause of all their reactions and their reactions are as cause to the physical world. When one states that there is free will, one needs to ask free will from what. The whole idea is absurd.

Some creatures are not reactionary but creative … what is the question of the topic a reaction to ?

When one states that there is free will, one needs to ask free will from what. The whole idea is absurd. — boagie

:up:

Some creatures are not reactionary but creative … what is the question of the topic a reaction to ? — invicta

It does not follow from your ignorance of the cause/s of your decision to post this "topic" that there was not any extrinsic (i.e. unconscious, involuntary) cause/s and that instead apparently it was only the effect of your spontaneous, or "creative", whimsy. Sorry, invictus, appeals to ignorance or incredulity are fallacious; and a 'transcendental (e.g. libertarian, ensouled) ego' is just another humunculus-of-the-gaps. :smirk:

Imagine if all that effort formatting your text has gone into composing an intelligent response :rofl:

Quote marks, italics, brackets…although nothing in bold. Slacking today are we?

9/10

Reaction is the process of being part of something larger than oneself, being of the earth. In order to move without, one needs to be moved within, in other words, one needs to be motivated and motivated movement spell's reaction not action. Evolutionary adaptation works on the processes of reaction for without said reactions it would not be possible. Diseases are reactions to chemical or biological invasions of the body and immune reactions are natural solutions. Free will is humanity's expression of egocentricity an understandable development in the sense that everyone feels themselves the center of their own universe; but it is delusional to think that one is in control. There is no such thing as human action, there is but human reactions. You would do well in trying to understand human behavior to ask yourself, what is the individual reacting to? This is not always discernable, but it is the only shot you have at understanding a given behavior that is not itself instinctual; which only means hardwired reactions. I invite anyone to give me an example of a human ACTION that is clearly not a reaction outside of say an epileptic convulsion.

When one states that there is free will, one needs to ask free will from what. The whole idea is absurd. — boagie

No. It is a synthetic judgement. If "will" is not (perceived) as free then it isn't "will" at all. This has a meaning in the subjective dimension. You ought to know if you want to post in this thread, if someone better came to your rescue or if you need some kind of therapy.

:up: My position on "free will" is (mostly) consistent with what you've written here.

I don't agree and Schopenhauer wrote a complete philosophy on the basis of the blind will. The way I see it, it is the ever coming into being. Like you might cut your lawn on a summer's day it doesn't give up because every Saturday you cut it down, it keeps coming into being. Sex itself is involuntary, it is not an intellectual decision or consciously willed to be sexually attracted, often it's rather inconvenient. Sex is basically the blind will of the species. Nature plays its species like a violin; the melody it plays upon us only we hear, and call it our apparent reality. As I stated elsewhere, the concept of free will is an egocentric delusion that we come by naturally, in that; we sense we all are at the center of our own universe; but to believe we are in control is a little like madness. If we could understand and accept this perhaps, we could live then in a sacred environment not isolated from it. As we are played by our environment, we call this experience/knowledge and meaning but again it is a melody only the conscious subject hears.

I don't agree and Schopenhauer wrote a complete philosophy on the basis of the blind will. The way I see it, it is the ever coming into being. Like you might cut your lawn on a summer's day it doesn't give up because every Saturday you cut it down, it keeps coming into being. — boagie

May be, but I was not speculating about metaphysics.
The declaration of will of an individual must be assumed as free expression. It makes no sense otherwise: Any form of coercion nullifies it as such.
You may see it as the expression of accordance between the state of affairs expressed on the piece of paper and the biological determination of your organism. That doesn't matter at all.
However, if you say that your signature is expression of external forces acting upon you - like the force of gravity overcame the autonomy of the small mass of your biological system, dragging your hand around making figures on the paper - that would matter.
The line of distinction is exactly the self-perception of the individual; being able to make such a distinction - subjectively - implies a meaningful concept of freedom and will.

So to repeat

The whole idea is absurd. — boagie

I cannot agree with that - the discussion about it's meaning may be. It doesn't matter one way or the other...

The control the human body has over itself is near total. Every action, weather it’s the heartbeat, the creation and secretion of hormones, the production of white blood cells, hair growth, breathing, talking, eating, walking, sexual arousal, digestion, is controlled and regulated and caused by a single entity: the human organism. Under these conditions, how can the will be unfree? What else in the universe controls the will?

Thus we fracture it into mind/body, involuntary/voluntary, conscious/unconscious, and posit ourselves in one and not the other. This, here, is the fundamental delusion.

Yes, freedom as a concept presupposes its own negation. In making any choice, the choice itself is a constraint. You can move up and down; have your cake and eat it too.

Freedom as pure abstract freedom from constraint is contradictory. Hegel's Philosophy of Right covers this quite well in the Introduction, I think after the opening sections on the will (so probably after section 8 at least, you can find it free online, but the writing is pretty bad).

Freedom also requires rationality. One cannot choose if one thing in the world doesn't follow from another, i.e. if relations are arbitrary. If tying my shoes sometimes results in my legs disappearing, and at other times teleports me to Paris, then I cannot make any choices based on my actions because my actions entail nothing consistent. Choices must have logical consequences for there to be freedom. This is why Liebnitz developed the principle of sufficient reason as a precondition of free will, although today it is more popular to see it as presupposing the illusory nature of free will.

Suppose I argue that free will is illusory, and you wish to show that you are free by waving your hand. Even if we assume that mind is not necessarily causally tied to the external world, you would still be moving your hand because of what I had said. This is a causal connection, but that doesn't presupposes a lack of freedom, rather it is a requirement for it. Pure arbitrariness is not freedom.

More specifically, when we talk about freedom in the practical sense, we often care about freedom from certain things, freedom from hunger, freedom from oppression.

But we also care about a positive freedom, freedom to choose rationally, not driven by instinct, desire, or arbitrariness. Positive freedom necessarily constraints, since it comes with duties. One cannot choose be a soldier without agreeing to follow certain duties. One cannot become a carpenter without others who want you to build or repair things for them in some sort of contractual arrangement. Thus freedom requires constraint and social relationships (which in turn constrain).

I think Frankfurt was on to something with the wanton/person distinction. Very briefly, persons are defined by their ability to want to have certain desires, e.g., someone wants to want to be an attentive parent (even if they aren't). This ability to reflect on and have desires about our desires is key to a certain type of freedom. I don't think his theory is complete though.

Some are determined to believe in "free will".

Some are determined to believe that "free will" is an illusion.

Some are determined to believe that "free will" is compatible with being determined.

And some are determined to think that 'whether or not we have "free will"' is a distinction that does not make a significant practical difference in our everyday lives.

It is clear to me that I made a choice (on creating this topic)

Does that detract from my free will or affirm that I have free will? — invicta

At a certain moment you made a choice. Where did that choice come from? Did you choose to make that choice? Did you choose to choose to choose, or did the choice merely arise?

Let's say you are free to act according to your nature, your inclinations. Did you create that nature, those inclinations? Did you create yourself?

:up:

The control the human body has over itself is near total. — NOS4A2

Under these conditions, how can the will be unfree? — NOS4A2

I can't be. Not under those conditions you just specified.

Now do you want to discuss the actual conditions which prevail in the real world? Or continue to make up whatever shit comes into your head and then say "hey, if this bullshit I've just 'reckoned' is true than some other bullshit I also reckon must be true too" and pretend that's serious thought?

The control the human body has over itself is near total. Every action, weather it’s the heartbeat, the creation and secretion of hormones, the production of white blood cells, hair growth, breathing, talking, eating, walking, sexual arousal, digestion, is controlled and regulated and caused by a single entity: the human organism. — NOS4A2

Al those things you listed are the activities of the human organism. The organism regulates its activities, but it is not a "single entity" if by that you mean there is some overarching central program. You make if sound as if there is a super-organism over and above the organism, a super-organism that controls the organism