your definition of Free Will

[Playfishpaste]

I know there's been a few threads on free will here, though I am of the school of thought that there is such a thing. Now this thread rather is about what free will actually means to you, and I came up with it based on a conversation with a friend I had a long while ago.

She asked if I had believed in free will, and I told her I did. She asked if I was aware that collectively how I was raised, what has happened to me, and my genetic make up are the only things that determine my decisions. We were both fairly well versed in biology, so I concurred that this was in fact the case. She posited then, that the only things that determine what I do are chance and my genes, none of which are under control by me. I had already known this, but I still consider my ability to make decisions independently, free will. She had a differing opinion and said that to her free will had always meant yourself being in complete control of your actions. I had told her that I considered myself to be my genes and my stimuli whilst developing. But we still disagreed.

I am wondering if the view of free will that she had is the mainstream one, because if it is, then technically a lot of people should know that we have no free will, if they've done any reading on genetics.

[Bovril]

At this point in time, as far as I know, science has nothing much to say about free will. So the debate remains a philosophical one.
To be honest I don't know what free will would really mean. The traditional sense of it meaning the opposite of determinism seems absurd. If one's will is not bound by the interaction of certain principles, imputs etc. in a way that is at least theoretically predictable, then the only factor that could explain the lack of predictability, as far as I can see, is randomness. And the metaphysical role of the dice does not really correspond to what most people think of as free will.
Perhaps we should drop the word 'free' and stick with 'will'. Humans have will (i.e. they have conscious volition) but how much we can say about that will in itself (rather than what mechanistic nuerological coraltes it has) is limited.

[Nietzsche]

At this point in time, as far as I know, science has nothing much to say about free will. So the debate remains a philosophical one.
To be honest I don't know what free will would really mean. The traditional sense of it meaning the opposite of determinism seems absurd. If one's will is not bound by the interaction of certain principles, imputs etc. in a way that is at least theoretically predictable, then the only factor that could explain the lack of predictability, as far as I can see, is randomness. And the metaphysical role of the dice does not really correspond to what most people think of as free will.
Perhaps we should drop the word 'free' and stick with 'will'. Humans have will (i.e. they have conscious volition) but how much we can say about that will in itself (rather than what mechanistic nuerological coraltes it has) is limited.

Determinists will never cease believing that the "model" will be found.

I'll concede that statistical patterns of behavior can be made, but those models are only good presently, not forwardly. A set of stimuli and possible choices may yield a statistical probability now that will not be achieved at another time, or with a different cultural group.

The problem with determinism is it assumes it can know all these "variables." But the Will cannot be determined. The mind will act based on choices that are both rational and irrational. A model may work in general, but it fails in specific because of the unique properties of the individual.

Our will is free, but the outcome of choices made by our will may not be conducive to future freedom.

[exponent]

"I think a better way to judge something instead of right or wrong,
good or evil is by measuring it with success or failure because that is something
which applies to reality out side of personal opinion. In short, you can't compare free will
to good and evil because they are purely opinion based."

Good is a point of view.

good is voluntary, or of its own accord.
Evil is involuntary, or against its will.

This is not about what is absolutely good, or evil,
but what can be considered absolutely voluntary,
for that is necessary to make a good choice on a basis of free will,
or free morality, to freely choose a thing because it is good.

Therefore, Hermeneutic Gravity states that no conscious act
can be entirely voluntary, unless Gravity is in essence also voluntary,
that is, if the very concepts of good and evil, causing and resulting from,
voluntary and involuntary acts, can be weighed against each others causal relations,
or if the Mind or the Will itself has mass,
and is capable of voluntary action by knowledge of the choice itself.

As no actor can have a complete knowledge of the causal interactions
inherent in any choice, and the degree of voluntarism is subject
to all preceding and following choices and the degrees of voluntarism
between these, Good and Evil are subject to the perspective
of the individual, and the collective will of Humanity.

From this, we might distill that Free-will may exist in gradations,
as long as there are acts which are voluntary,
and not influenced by involuntary acts, which would disprove absolute causality,
unless the very first act of the universe was also voluntary,
for instance, if Gravity came into existence voluntarily, or of its own accord.

My definition of Free Will must include the following:

The Will has momentum, possibly because it attains relativistic mass.
And it originates from the Future,
at a differential of between 10^-5 and 10^-12 seconds ahead of the present.

This must be so, for in order to make a conscious choice or action
that can affect the present, allowing for a minimum time-lag between
wanting a thing and acting accordingly, the will must originate ahead of the present,
so that we are capable of percieving different possible futures before they occur,
and voluntarily choose between defined possible actions,
without being influenced by causal structures.

Perhaps the concepts of angular momentum (spin) or polarity (positive and negative)
are also applicable to the movements and substance of the will.

[AscendingIndigo]

"I think a better way to judge something instead of right or wrong,
good or evil is by measuring it with success or failure because that is something
which applies to reality out side of personal opinion. In short, you can't compare free will
to good and evil because they are purely opinion based."

Good is a point of view.

good is voluntary, or of its own accord.
Evil is involuntary, or against its will.

This is not about what is absolutely good, or evil,
but what can be considered absolutely voluntary,
for that is necessary to make a good choice on a basis of free will,
or free morality, to freely choose a thing because it is good.

Therefore, Hermeneutic Gravity states that no conscious act
can be entirely voluntary, unless Gravity is in essence also voluntary,
that is, if the very concepts of good and evil, causing and resulting from,
voluntary and involuntary acts, can be weighed against each others causal relations,
or if the Mind or the Will itself has mass,
and is capable of voluntary action by knowledge of the choice itself.

As no actor can have a complete knowledge of the causal interactions
inherent in any choice, and the degree of voluntarism is subject
to all preceding and following choices and the degrees of voluntarism
between these, Good and Evil are subject to the perspective
of the individual, and the collective will of Humanity.

From this, we might distill that Free-will may exist in gradations,
as long as there are acts which are voluntary,
and not influenced by involuntary acts, which would disprove absolute causality,
unless the very first act of the universe was also voluntary,
for instance, if Gravity came into existence voluntarily, or of its own accord.

My definition of Free Will must include the following:

The Will has momentum, possibly because it attains relativistic mass.
And it originates from the Future,
at a differential of between 10^-5 and 10^-12 seconds ahead of the present.

This must be so, for in order to make a conscious choice or action
that can affect the present, allowing for a minimum time-lag between
wanting a thing and acting accordingly, the will must originate ahead of the present,
so that we are capable of percieving different possible futures before they occur,
and voluntarily choose between defined possible actions,
without being influenced by causal structures.

Perhaps the concepts of angular momentum (spin) or polarity (positive and negative)
are also applicable to the movements and substance of the will.

Your over complicating this just a tad my friend. I prefer to look at free will as the ability to be in control over yourself and the actions you choose to make in the world (yes your voluntary choices). I believe that free will can be something you earn as well as give away but only as a choice made by you, though you don't always have to be concious of the choice to make it.

I don't think that anyone has ever tried to strive for ultimate freedom as people would define the word so if no one has ever tried then who is to say that it is unreachable. People have said that man would never fly but just look at us now.

By the way, that's a great way to define Good and evil but I doubt that many other people would define it the same way. I can't really argue with that though, I can only say that limits are not perminent. Evil (as you define it) can be over come with confidence and experience. I see God as a goal though I don't believe it's one that can be truly reached.

[exponent]

That definition of the Good is not my own,
but was apparently formulated some several thousand years ago.

It is the only statement I had encountered that contains this boundary on goodness,
that it must also be voluntary, which seems to make sense,
and relates directly to the freedom of the will.

The problem here is that Gravity as a force and interaction
is the most direct boundary-condition on the operation of free-will.

All known particles and force-carriers are influenced by gravity,
save for the elusive Higgs-boson or graviton.

Only if we were somehow exempt from causal Gravity,
could absolute causality be dissolved as a factor influencing
the voluntary nature of the will, and this is difficult to envision.

Hence, the will attains momentum by relativistic mass,
and Free will must originate in part from the future,
to make voluntary movements of massive objects a possibility.

Can any action be completely voluntary?

[Playfishpaste]

Well, if we are the product of our genes and the chance happenings of our environment, then anything we do is really predetermined by nature. There is no decision we can make outside of that. If I decide I want to play guitar at 2 AM whilst having sex with a chicken, that is because my genes and the way I grew up made me want to do that, or made me decide to do it for whatever reasons. I really didn't have a say in the matter unless I have been two people or unless I am an omnipotent being as well.

This implies to my friend that free will doesn't exist. But I don't consider this kind of free will the kind of free will I believe in. I think the ability to make a choice is free will, not the complete non-predetermination of that choice.

[Bovril]

From a scientific point of view we can't yet exclude the possibility of factors other than environmental imput and genetics in determining behaviour let alone cognition since our current models of explanation for those phenomena have relitively poor explanatory and predictive power. Unfortunately psychology/cognitive science is one of those uncomfortable areas of inquirey where quite often we simply have to hold our hands up and admit we don't know. It may be that science is simply incapable of explaining human behaviour and cognition fully, or explaining the causal relationship between consciousness and neurological activity. To me, this implies that the assumption that both your friend and you are making about behaviour being a product of genetics and environment is a philosophical rather than a scientific one. Which is fine, but I wouldn't rely too heavily on your premises.

[Playfishpaste]

I don't see how it could possibly be put forth that science is uncertain of how cognition comes to be in terms of it's origins. Humans are made from two things, genetics and nurture (outside neurological stimuli, which are either events that happen to you, you witness or observe with the five senses, etc.). This is a fundamental principle of anthropology and genetics. There's nothing inside of you that isn't there because of your genes or stimuli in your life. If there was we'd have found it by now.

[Bovril]

Anthropology and genetics are not the relevant disciplines however. Cognitive science and psychology are. Assumptions that may be usefull in genetics are not so good in other fields. The only factor we have any good understanding of (in an experimental context) in these fields when it comes to the specifics of normal people's cognition is recent environmental imputs. How genetics influences the specifics of human behaviour and cognition is pretty much a mystery. Even for pretty straightforward things like IQ, we know there is some genetic component, but how it functions is almost totally unknown. When it comes to individual acts of the will, there is essentially nothing we can say about the influence of genetics. Consequently the claim that genetics and environment are the only factors involved in human behaviour and cognition is a claim made by the philosophy of science rather than the product of scientific inquirey by itself.

[Playfishpaste]

Cognitive science is a branch of psychology, which must operate under the principles of genetics. Genetic science is a fundamental backing for all of the sciences which involve the study of humans. We know from observational evidence that humans work because of their genes. Our genes are what make up what we are, they are what determine our biochemical orientation, how our hypothalamus works, and what neuropeptides we give off. They are the blueprint for the machine that we are. This machine can alter itself based on what it observes with it's five "detectors" or senses. However, how the machine alters itself is limited to the original program in it's main processing unit. If the machine runs on Basic, it cannot suddenly switch to C. We are not RNA based life forms, we are influenced by our DNA. Science makes statements based on evidence. The evidence says that all human activity is the result of Genetics and nurture. The way in which synapses work and make contact is all determined by the principles of biochemistry and ordained by genetics. If one of the calcium ions in my brain suddenly becomes positive, this is the result of either the environment or my genes, nothing else. What else would it be bovril?

[Bovril]

What else would it be bovril?

If I could answer that question I'd be a nobel laureate allready. I'm not trying to argue that the theory that the best model for all human devellopment and behaviour is one restricted to the interaction of genetic information (which, as we know, is an abstraction) and environmental factors (which, in as much as we can understand them, are also abstractions) is wrong. I'm simply saying that such a model is so underdevelloped right now, and its explanitory power when it comes to cognition so limited, that trying to use it to understand human will from a scientific point of view is extremely premature, and for all we know will never be possible. Fairly firm thigs can be said from a scientific point of view about some aspects of human cognition, but trying to incorporate them into a genetics based model of psychology is a projet that has barely even begun.

[Playfishpaste]

If I could answer that question I'd be a nobel laureate allready. I'm not trying to argue that the theory that the best model for all human devellopment and behaviour is one restricted to the interaction of genetic information (which, as we know, is an abstraction) and environmental factors (which, in as much as we can understand them, are also abstractions) is wrong. I'm simply saying that such a model is so underdevelloped right now, and its explanitory power when it comes to cognition so limited, that trying to use it to understand human will from a scientific point of view is extremely premature, and for all we know will never be possible. Fairly firm thigs can be said from a scientific point of view about some aspects of human cognition, but trying to incorporate them into a genetics based model of psychology is a projet that has barely even begun.

I completely agree with and concede that not field of sciences has had a complete grasp of cognition, I just get the strong feeling that we have vastly different views on how much of it we have come to understand. For instance, Neurology and biochemistry can tell you whether or not someone is predisposed to killing, why exactly someone is in love, the various types of love, why people choose to use freudian projection (as well as what exactly they are thinking whilst doing it), why there are differences between culture's morals chemically, why people tend to believe in higher beings and why people are partial to art rather then science or vice versa. I would think many people would consider these questions restricted to the realm of philosophy and aren't aware of how well science has answered them.

[Dayman]

I'm pretty much a determinist, however it still feels like the choices are our own, so to me it doesn't mean anything if they really aren't.

[Playfishpaste]

However, I think you are right in your proposition to drop the free...I still like it though for it's romanticism.

And boeing, that's pretty much my view in a nutshell. Life is still interesting regardless of whether or not we know it's limited.

[Ummon]

If any free will exists, it is the ability to choose between alternatives. Possible models of such activity come to mind, but this is all far fetched as of now.

Common assumption would be that decisions are based on complex calculations made outside consciousness and we confabulate a voluntary cause as explanation.

Although, do we know?

Personally, I keep an optimist take on this. The worst which can happen is that I am wrong.

[AscendingIndigo]

I believe in free will because I believe that each person has control of their lives and how they choose to live regardless of chance or genetics. Choice is always an option, genetics just make you more prone to do one thing or another.

I view genetics as habits developed by your parents and their parents and so on, being passed on to you through heredity. Since they have survived to reproduce, they obviously are doing something right so anything they where good at doing you can be even better at doing than they where... but only by choice. That is the point of control that decides your own free will. To choose if you want to do something for one reason or not to because of another. It all boils down to what you want to do so I say that there is a free will and I also believe that it's possible to equip your children to enhance their free will by practicing habits that will prove useful in life.

Anything you practice at you will get better at doing. If you want to see examples of that then watch a nature documentary. If you have ever wondered why an animal is so prone to doing something in a specific way then think of how many generations have practiced doing it the same way before them. If it works they sirvive, if it doesn't then natural selection catches back up with them.

The reason we have free will is because we can adapt to change easier. It gives us our ability to survive in unique ways to the unique conditions the world presents to us. Instinct depends on your evolution and evolution is determined by choice and choice depends on your own free will.

[Chaigidel]

the ability to act against what you are naturally designed to do.

[Playfishpaste]

so if your actions are the result of random chance, because the environment is random chance and not predetermined, you still have free will?

[AscendingIndigo]

Why do you assume that everything is random? Everything happens for a reason, it's all cause and effect. For everything you can ask a "Why" question about, there is an answer to go allong with it.