Do we have free will?

No, we don't. Because everything already happened.

" @EternalInfinity0:   Who's arguing that free-will and the idea of case-and-effect are mutually exclusive?  Of course any situation is predicated upon what led up to it, but at each turn a choice was made in reaction to each event or cause.  Each moment is the result of countless decisions made by countless people.  Our decisions might be swayed by our experiences, upbringing, and past events, but they're still decisions. "

I believe my past experiences make it more probable that I will follow a certain path, but the choice is still mine, similar to how a scientist can know at what energy level an electron is likely to be at, but not know for certain. Basically, people have free will, but certain "paths" are more likely than others, based on past experience and whatnot. I can grow up in an English-speaking country, but also learn to speak French of my own free will, independently of actually needing to or not.

" If there is no free will then is it right to punish murderers? "

" @CaLe said:

" If there is no free will then is it right to punish murderers? "

If there is no free will and their predecided path is to kill people then they are a menace to society and have to be punished. "

Do we have Free Willy?

" @sharma55 said:

" @CaLe said:

" If there is no free will then is it right to punish murderers? "

If there is no free will and their predecided path is to kill people then they are a menace to society and have to be punished. "

But it wouldn't be their fault. Nothing would be anyone's fault. In a purely deterministic world there couldn't be any fault whatsoever since no one has any choice in anything they do. Things like responsibility and love and goodness would just be chemical reactions in the brain; it would be just as natural for the murderer to murder as it would be for a lover to love or a tree to fall down when cut. </Devil's Advocate> "

Well, to quote the Protomen "A hero is just a man that knows he's free."
 
Those words are true, no matter how hammy they are.  Let's say you're walking with your girlfriend at night and a man approaches you.  He pulls out two guns, one, pointed at you, the other, handle first, offering it to you.  He says "There is one bullet, kill yourself, kill that woman, or I'll kill you both."
 
In that situation, some people would see two choices.  Kill themselves, or their Girlfriend.  Some see three, one where you kill the man.  Some see even more, shooting in the air for attention, allowing themselves to die, merely wounding the man, merely wounding themselves in an attempt to fool the man, simply trying to run away...
 
Here's where the free will kicks in, when someone gives you several choices and you choose none of the above.

As long as I don't have a gun to my head, yeah, I think I got teh free will!
 
Also, the only cakes I buy are the ones I can eat!

" @MarcusOfLycia said:

" @sharma55 said:

" @CaLe said:

" If there is no free will then is it right to punish murderers? "

If there is no free will and their predecided path is to kill people then they are a menace to society and have to be punished. "

But it wouldn't be their fault. Nothing would be anyone's fault. In a purely deterministic world there couldn't be any fault whatsoever since no one has any choice in anything they do. Things like responsibility and love and goodness would just be chemical reactions in the brain; it would be just as natural for the murderer to murder as it would be for a lover to love or a tree to fall down when cut. </Devil's Advocate> "

Right, can't disagree with anything there, which pretty much has me leaning to the conclusion that there can't be a purely deterministic world. I'm now starting to consider this whole thing like a flowchart, you have free will for moment to moment decisions but every one of those decisions sends you down a predetermined path to where you have to make another choice.  "

" @sharma55 said:

Right, can't disagree with anything there, which pretty much has me leaning to the conclusion that there can't be a purely deterministic world. I'm now starting to consider this whole thing like a flowchart, you have free will for moment to moment decisions but every one of those decisions sends you down a predetermined path to where you have to make another choice.  "

Right, I think that understanding makes a bit more sense than a more strict approach. My own view is similar I think (I like the flow-chart idea; good imagery). I think I lean towards the idea that we are pre-determined in many things and yet have the ability to choose our own responses, despite the circumstances beyond our control. If one thinks long and hard enough, they'll find a part of themselves beneath the cause-and-effect 'layer' that tends to be what others see; they'll see into the deepest part of their own self, and I think it's there that we really find free will in a tangible way. "

" No, sir, I believe we don't.  When you think about it, it all really comes down to the chemistry of our bodies. We react in a certain way to every situation because it's what we are programmed to do. Of course there is no foreseeable way to predict what we will do until we do it, so life it still a surprise. Life really is just a one track ride, though. "

" @Pox22 said:

" @EternalInfinity0:   Who's arguing that free-will and the idea of case-and-effect are mutually exclusive?  Of course any situation is predicated upon what led up to it, but at each turn a choice was made in reaction to each event or cause.  Each moment is the result of countless decisions made by countless people.  Our decisions might be swayed by our experiences, upbringing, and past events, but they're still decisions. "

I personally believe both exist simultaneously. It first appeared to me as a paradox but it really doesn't anymore. I'm a Christian myself, and find my worldview/religious beliefs coincide well with this co-existence of free will and predestination. I typically only have cause to disagree with those who embrace only one of the two sides exclusively with no acknowledgment of the other. "

Everything is already in motion to happen a certain way. We are all cogs in a grand machine.

This might sound ridiculous still the following video in the past impacted my view on the subject  

 

" I think we have no idea of the momentum of all accumalative consciousness racing through space-time. We are archetypes unfolding again and again. I do not want to state any truth because then I have fallen to the folly of duality. I believe (intuitively, not rationally) that we act out of free will but that our choices are predetermined anyway. We can phatom both, can we not? To quote Blake: "Everything possible to be believed, is an image of truth". The term pre-determined implies time can be seen as something seperate from experience and well, that's just a nice little Newtonian safety net for your sensibilities. Actually this question can never be answered as this very debate is also subject to the question creating an infinite paradox.   Inb4 some philosophy major starts quoting Aristoteles and deducing stuff.  Edit: I should stay away from these topics because my personal truth is more interesting to me than unsolveable abstractions on direct experience. On that note, you should all take entheogens and try thinking about one or the other as absolution without feeling silly. "

" I believe my past experiences make it more probable that I will follow a certain path, but the choice is still mine, similar to how a scientist can know at what energy level an electron is likely to be at, but not know for certain. Basically, people have free will, but certain "paths" are more likely than others, based on past experience and whatnot. I can grow up in an English-speaking country, but also learn to speak French of my own free will, independently of actually needing to or not. "

" @MarcusOfLycia said:

" @sharma55 said:

" @CaLe said:

" If there is no free will then is it right to punish murderers? "

If there is no free will and their predecided path is to kill people then they are a menace to society and have to be punished. "

But it wouldn't be their fault. Nothing would be anyone's fault. In a purely deterministic world there couldn't be any fault whatsoever since no one has any choice in anything they do. Things like responsibility and love and goodness would just be chemical reactions in the brain; it would be just as natural for the murderer to murder as it would be for a lover to love or a tree to fall down when cut. </Devil's Advocate> "

Right, can't disagree with anything there, which pretty much has me leaning to the conclusion that there can't be a purely deterministic world. I'm now starting to consider this whole thing like a flowchart, you have free will for moment to moment decisions but every one of those decisions sends you down a predetermined path to where you have to make another choice.  "

*looks at Best User of 2010 thread* Not really, no.

No we don't have fee will.  If it was true free will, we could do whatever we wanted to do.  Pillage, plunder, rape, kill, and destroy anyone.  But with today's ideals and attitude towards life, we have to be politically correct.  Saying words like "retard" are just upsetting to some people.  Television telling us what we can wear and what we can't wear is getting worse and worse.

" No we don't have fee will.  If it was true free will, we could do whatever we wanted to do.  Pillage, plunder, rape, kill, and destroy anyone.  But with today's ideals and attitude towards life, we have to be politically correct.  Saying words like "retard" are just upsetting to some people.  Television telling us what we can wear and what we can't wear is getting worse and worse. "

" No one knows. "

" @MatPaget: If you've never done anything on a whim.....you sir have more problems than a pre-determined fate.... "

 
you only live once

I don't really think everything is predetermined, but there has to be some sort of... grid is the only way I can put it. There are a lot of little coincidences that happen to me all the time. For example, when I'm biking in the morning and there are few cars on the roads, you would think that at all intersections I would be able to cross freely. But somehow, every time I pull up to one, a car pulls up at the exact same time, which is really annoying. 
Weird stuff man...

Yes we do. God isn't real.

" @Styl3s said:

 
you only live once

or do you? "

" Yes we do. God isn't real. "

" @MatPaget said:

" @Styl3s said:

 
you only live once

or do you? "

see! hallway of infinite doors
 
WE NEED TO GO DEEPER

I believe we do have free will.
 
However, I also believe that it was not through our own choice that we have free will.
 
What came first, the chicken or the egg?

No we don't.  There is a very intriguing section in 13 Things that don't make sense by Michael Brooks on Free Will.  In a nutshell, an experiment was done by Benjamin Linet,  in which he discovered that our brains have comitted to an action up to half a second before we have any sort of concious intention of perfomring the action.  It is really interesting read.  He goes a bit into Alien Hand Syndrome and the readiness potential.

Well, you chose not to know any other languages other than English... it wasn't predetermined. I know fluent English and Portuguese, I do pretty well with Spanish, I also know a bit of French and Italian and I'm now trying to learn both German and Japanese. Was that predetermined? I don't think so, no.....

" @Styl3s said:

" @MatPaget said:

" @Styl3s said:

 
you only live once

or do you? "

see! hallway of infinite doors
 
WE NEED TO GO DEEPER

Or do we? "

Technically, I would say no. We don't have free will. We can't always choose when or how we're going to die, where we're born or how we're raised. We do however, have the freedom to make most of our choices independent of our environment. We can choose whether or not we go to school for this or that, if we're going to go to class or work, whether we kill someone or don't. Society conditions us to behave in a certain way, but no one is required by their willpower to do what society wants.  
 
Biologically, we're conditioned to react in a certain way in certain circumstances, but it is our choice to do what we to do with those biological responses. Not every dude rapes a woman because he gets a boner, not every woman is going to want babies because she's menstruating. We have free will with our individual actions, but not necessarily over our existence. 
 
I am not a fan of philosophy. It always feels like talking in circles without getting any kind of tangible or useful answer. I am happier to exist and assume I have free will over my actions and life and not have to worry about whether or not some complicated thing is pulling me along a specific path.

" You summed up exactly how i think about the matter. No bullshit  Edit: Ignore these dickholes that feel the need to post in every thread they see, even if they have nothing relevant to say. "

Hmm, it seems that the majority of people here don't understand that Pre-determination isn't a bad thing, and equally don't understand that Free Will isn't a good thing.
Also, I think most people don't understand the concepts of the two.
 
Hmm...

" @MarcusOfLycia said:

" @sharma55 said:

Right, can't disagree with anything there, which pretty much has me leaning to the conclusion that there can't be a purely deterministic world. I'm now starting to consider this whole thing like a flowchart, you have free will for moment to moment decisions but every one of those decisions sends you down a predetermined path to where you have to make another choice.  "

Right, I think that understanding makes a bit more sense than a more strict approach. My own view is similar I think (I like the flow-chart idea; good imagery). I think I lean towards the idea that we are pre-determined in many things and yet have the ability to choose our own responses, despite the circumstances beyond our control. If one thinks long and hard enough, they'll find a part of themselves beneath the cause-and-effect 'layer' that tends to be what others see; they'll see into the deepest part of their own self, and I think it's there that we really find free will in a tangible way. "

And now this conversation has me believing more in reincarnation, based on the way you deal with these decisions depends on how you're allowed to give the world another shot  rather than going to heaven or hell. "

" @FlyingRat said:

" You summed up exactly how i think about the matter. No bullshit  Edit: Ignore these dickholes that feel the need to post in every thread they see, even if they have nothing relevant to say. "

Hey I resent that!  I think the term free-will is a bit loose. We do what we want to do, so that is free will, but our own circumstances create who we are and therefore we are merely reacting to our environment. Rewind time, create the infinite loop, no-matter what happens everything will play out exactly the same. Your thoughts are in your mind, your mind is your brain, your brain is a slab of spaghetti with electrons passing through it with different segments forming and breaking as you go through your life. Your sensors (eyes etc.) influence the electrons and the forming of your brain. The level of nutrition of your body affects the electrons that race through your spaghetti. It is all IMPOSSIBLE. Keep it in your pants. Keep it dry. Don't let them touch you. Yes you have free will. "

" No we don't.  There is a very intriguing section in 13 Things that don't make sense by Michael Brooks on Free Will.  In a nutshell, an experiment was done by Benjamin Linet,  in which he discovered that our brains have comitted to an action up to half a second before we have any sort of concious intention of perfomring the action.  It is really interesting read.  He goes a bit into Alien Hand Syndrome and the readiness potential. "

" No we don't have fee will.  If it was true free will, we could do whatever we wanted to do.  Pillage, plunder, rape, kill, and destroy anyone.  But with today's ideals and attitude towards life, we have to be politically correct.  Saying words like "retard" are just upsetting to some people.  Television telling us what we can wear and what we can't wear is getting worse and worse. "

" Do you believe we have free will or is everything predetermined?  I'm leaning to the latter of the two. Basically, I feel we don't have free will because of all the forces in the universe working together puts us on a single path. We can only make one action and not two. You can't have your cake and eat it so to speak.  The path you take all comes from hereditary and your environment. Aka, I was taught English all my life, my environment places me in an English speaking world. I can and will talk to people. Place me in a French speaking world and I will be unable to communicate.   The past (my hereditary) was being taught English. My environment is the English/French speaking world.  Another example of a predetermined path is something that inevitably happens: The sun will rise tomorrow. I will also get out of bed. I believe I have free will by doing this, but I have only taken that ONE action. If I choose to not get out of bed it is by other predetermined resons, and I have NOT gotten out of bed. That SINGLE action. "

If there's grass on the field, play ball?

There is no predetermined fate. 
 
Someone being mentaly ill and killing people should not be compared to not having free will. They're doing it because something is wrong with them nothing more nothing less.  Every sane person in this thread has the potential to kill a person, its whether they decide to do it not, that is free will, my teacher told me that in like Elementary.   Instinct should also not be compared to a predetermined fate. 
 
One thing you cannot do with humans, is put everyone in a box and limit them to certain decisions, a person killed and raped your mother? some people will choose to kill that person while others will forgive. Your logic doesn't work because there are kids who were beaten and abused in childhood and grow up to become very successful and giving citizens. However another child who experiences the same shit, grows up and kills people. Hell some kids have it all and are spoiled to death and still grow up "wrong". How you're raised =/= How you become always. 
 
The people who experienced horrible shit and come out fine, were the strong ones who chose to forgive & forget, the ones who end up flawed, blaming everyone and or killing people are the weak ones who chose a route of self destruction. Another example of why that logic does not work, Slavery, using your logic slavery should not be abolished in the western countries. Parents were raising their kids to hate people and yet, those few kids still stood up and disagreed with their parents despite being raised to hate.  
 
Also i don't get the Vegemite analogy, your girlfriend hates it so you don't eat it around her,  that is a choice, it obviously upsets her so you choose not to eat it infront of her. You could easily choose to eat it around her lol.

@CaLe said:

" If there is no free will then is it right to punish murderers? "

A murderer got out of having the death sentence because of this argument.  
 

" @Frohman said:

@CaLe said:

" If there is no free will then is it right to punish murderers? "

A murderer got out of having the death sentence because of this argument.  
 

Wow. That is some clever thinking by the murderer.   There's no good or evil if there isn't free will. Because there is good or evil (or rather, because we created the concept) there is. "

Personally, I don't give a shit. I'm too busy living.

I think this really comes down to belief. I understand your argument that it's all chemicals, impulses and physics that could be predicted, but then one might say when you're face with a decision it's not up to your chemicals, but to "you". The "you" could be also called soul, and it's up to everyone of us to decide what we want to believe. Sadly, we propably won't live until the day when your question will be answered.

No, we're Sims. 
 

Everything is predetermined by the Illuminati.

The cake is real to me! 
 
But honestly, I hope the OP didn't actually expect to have a deep conversation regarding this on a videogame forum. I mean, c'mon.

" There is no predetermined fate.  Someone being mentaly ill and killing people should not be compared to not having free will. They're doing it because something is wrong with them nothing more nothing less.  Every sane person in this thread has the potential to kill a person, its whether they decide to do it not, that is free will, my teacher told me that in like Elementary.   Instinct should also not be compared to a predetermined fate.  One thing you cannot do with humans, is put everyone in a box and limit them to certain decisions, a person killed and raped your mother? some people will choose to kill that person while others will forgive. Your logic doesn't work because there are kids who were beaten and abused in childhood and grow up to become very successful and giving citizens. However another child who experiences the same shit, grows up and kills people. Hell some kids have it all and are spoiled to death and still grow up "wrong". How you're raised =/= How you become always.  The people who experienced horrible shit and come out fine, were the strong ones who chose to forgive & forget, the ones who end up flawed, blaming everyone and or killing people are the weak ones who chose a route of self destruction. Another example of why that logic does not work, Slavery, using your logic slavery should not be abolished in the western countries. Parents were raising their kids to hate people and yet, those few kids still stood up and disagreed with their parents despite being raised to hate."

Well, I have the illusion of freewill, and that's all that really matters. I don't think it necessarily destroys the concept of culpability (it shouldn't matter if you could have done otherwise or not; what matters is what is done). 
 
I'm a materialist (in the philosophical sense) so I think it is an illusion.

Yes we do.

I thought this was going to be a T-shirt fundraiser to get Will Smith bail money.

" I read the topic as "do we have free Wi-Fi?"  This is actually even easier to answer... "