Does free will actually exist?. If you would have been born with my genetics and was raised by my parents wouldn't you have made the same exact decisions as Me? I didn't choose to have depression, anxiety, A.D.D, OCD. These things caused me to do things that I have no control over. They even have a new study out showing that the brain rewrites history when it makes its choices, changing our memories so that we believe we wanted to do something before it happened. I'm starting to think that life has no meaning. What are your thoughts? Try to be nice ..

I see free will as a matter of health. It's usually those with health problems (mental, emotional, or physical) that doubt the existence of free will, whereas those that are basically healthy and strong believe that yes, we do have free will. I think it's a matter of perspective; less about some objective truth of human nature and more about, well, how do YOU feel?

Free will?
Illusion of free-will
Is freedom an illusion?

Some great threads that cover this reasonably well, especially the first link with Gibrans posts.

Maybe re-vamp those threads, especially the first link since it's a well articulated thread.

Your genetics affects your decisions, but there are other factors.
Twins don't make the same decisions and if they did, they'd crash into each other, because they'd both want to be in the same place
A small difference in the choices we make can lead to big differences over time (known as the butterfly effect). So, for example, if your hypothetical twin did even the slightest thing differently at any point, he might end up having a completely different life to yours. If he bit his finger at the age of 2, he might end up becoming a monk, instead of, say, a lawyer.

Now, we know atoms and subatomic particles behave in unpredictable ways. However, we don't know if those random choices are deterministic or made on-the-fly. (I use the word "random" in the sense of a random number generator, so "random" doesn't necessarily mean non-deterministic).

The randomness of small particles naturally carries over to larger objects. It's not as evident at that scale, which makes the larger objects more stable, but then it's leveraged by the butterfly effect.

When you shoot a ball from a cannon, even in completely windless conditions, it will change its course from any trajectory you may calculate for it using Newtonian mechanics - most likely very slightly, but there is a small probability it may be a substantial change. That's the ball's 'free will'. And the cannon has its own.

Conscious intelligence is yet another way in which the randomness of small particles is leveraged. If you ask a human to throw a ball, the results will be less predictable than shooting it from a cannon, so the leverage is stronger, but somehow neater, more rounded and adaptive.

Another example would be planting a seed. You can't predict the shape of the branches of the tree that will grow from it, but you know the general pattern it will follow, and there is great complexity in the final result, but also beauty and gracefulness.

It's interesting how these difference levels of organization of matter have evolved in the Universe.


Considering our limited knowledge and understanding, I think everybody is free to choose whether to believe in a deterministic Universe or a non-deterministic one. I choose to believe life has a meaning But you're free to choose otherwise (although to be consistent, you'd have to say you have no choice )

So many people want to define free will as absolute and total free will. As something that either exists, and then you should be in control of yourself for a full 100%, or it absolutely does not exist, and then you would have 0% control over yourself.

I think it's quite Obvious that no-one could ever exert control over him or herself for a full 100%. You're never 'free' for 100%.

But isn't it weird to too, to think that you have a 0% say in all the choices you make?

This, definitely. It's a mix. A sliding scale. A spectrum. And like I said in my post, probably different for each person, depending on their situation/position in life.

Philosophical discussion around the topic seems to me, therefore, hubris and intellectual posturing, whereas it really should be a personal discussion of life situations.

Isn't that what all philosophical discussion is, anyway? A clever avoidance of personal topics?

That's not necessarily true. Scientists and neuroscientist such as Sam Harris doubt the existence of free will. Are you saying that your brain works better than theirs? Questioning the world around you isn't a sign of weakness. How does the existence of free will have anything to do with health ?. I'm not talking about how someone feels . I'm talking about what's real and what isn't..... RhthmSpring why do you feel the need to troll? Obviously you're not trying to help me. to the other people that responded, Thank you ..

I troll you not! I think you are misinterpreting what I'm saying. Who said anything about questioning the world around you being a sign of weakness?

"How does the existence of free will have anything to do with health?"

For example, I have severe inflammatory arthritis. My options in life are very limited at this moment. One might say that I have less free will than say, someone with a healthy body and lots of money, and perhaps a more open mind. They would feel that they have more command in making various choices in their life.

Like the post above my last one says, why must we think of it in terms of black-and-white; either 100% free will or 0% free will? Why can't it be a mix of both? Why do we have to be enamored with polar extremes and try to apply them to human life, which I'd argue is much more complex, fluid, and dynamic than the stark labels we come up with in our mind?

A very interesting topic. I feel my free will is limited my my enslavement to the system. I was very goal oriented in the past. I've assumed a large amount of debt and responsibility, but that had also afforded me some financial security for retirement. It's a lose win situation, but I try to focus on my future and what I am building. That, to me, is a loss of free will. It's transient though, well for the next 20 years or so haha, EVENTUALLY it will be beneficial.

My career choice has also chastised my personal free will. If I mess up at work, people can die. Over the years I've experienced a handful of fatalities at work that constantly remind of the gravity of my responsibility. I chose to work in this field, and that was by free will. Now that I'm here I have this lifestyle I've built that would collapse if I were to change professions.

How do I exercise free will when I've created my own enslavement? I don't know.

This is maybe a bit off topic, but...what kind of work is it, that you do?
Some jobs just carry a huge load of responsibility with them, and i have Always had a huge admiration for people willing to face such challenges (Probably because i'm not realy good at handling stress and pressure myself).

You may not have chosen the trials of depression, anxiety, ADD or OCD, but they can be overcome through strength of will... the trick is building up you confidence, character and self-esteem so that you have the willpower to rise above these traits. When you rise above them, you become much stronger because of these trials. You may not be able to take responsibility for the things you cannot control, but you can take responsibility for those aspects that you can ~ identify what is in your current control and make do with that until new opportunities open up.

As for free will... well, it should be obvious that from your raw perspective, that you have power to examine your thoughts, think about your actions, consider the past, present and future, and feel emotions that you can choose to give into, or through conscious effort, override. You are only your brain if you believe so... but you aren't merely your brain ~ you are far greater than that! You have many choices... more than you consciously realize. Meditation can be a major boon here, especially when you throw some mild doses of psychedelics into the mix.

Life has meaning... because it up to the individual to give it meaning. We all came here to discover what that meaning is.

No matter my own trials of depression and anxiety, my path is one of discovering my true Self deep within, beyond the imbalancing influences of the world, to fully Know and Understand my Self despite all of the challenges life throws in my path.

Know that you are far more than you believe yourself to be! Find inspiration in every moment that you can, and allow it to guide you forward.

Another talk by this same jurist scholar, mentioning a bi-focal view.

Free will exists alright.

Granted, every action has a reaction. In 3.5bn years, the Milky Way will crash into Andromeda - an inevitable gravitational result. In much the same way, your personality and experiences will cause you to gravitate towards certain actions - especially when depression/anxiety, where your pattern of thinking has become habitual, and you have circular thought processes burned into your head.

But at any moment, a new thought or idea can emerge. I'm hungover right now, and consequently will likely spend the day in bed playing games. But the idea of getting a fry up may emerge, and I might choose to act on that. I'll probably stay in bed though - this shit's real.

Point is, you are walking down the path of the most likely outcome. But dumb luck or rogue thoughts may end up taking you somewhere else entirely, and that's your free will choosing another outcome.

Sam Harris was the first person who came to my mind after reading the title of the thread! I align with his views on the subject: that we do not have free will and every action we take is deterministic. I like to use the following thought experiment: if you knew all of the information about the universe (or multiverse) in a given moment, would you be able to predict what would happen in precisely the next moment? It seems like we should be able to do so, as everything that happens appears to be just a result or effect of something else. And if that is true, then there is no free will, as the entire course of the universe has already been determined by its initial conditions (the first moment of the universe determined the second, the second the third, and so on).

The only way I could see that not being the case was if there is true randomness somewhere in the universe. If there is true randomness, then we would not be able to predict the next moment given all of the information in the moment immediately preceding. But, if such a random process was to exist within the human mind, it wouldn't be free will, as there would be no intent. The thought or decision would just be random chance.

We like to believe that we can consciously determine our path in the world. I think that we can, but it is not free will; our actions and thoughts, even if they are conscious, are completely predictable with full information about initial conditions of the universe and an understanding of every system that affects us.

However knowing such information, currently, is outside the grasp of the human mind, which gives us the impression of free will. I have found that thinking this way makes one much more empathetic, as one can begin to understand that other people have not really chosen the way they are, meaning none of us are really at fault for anything. I find this type of empathy to be part of American liberal ideology. Even though one would think that religious conservatives would be the ones who believe in fate and divine destiny, their stance is often that god gave humans free will, meaning that we can hold people accountable for their actions. But the liberal realizes that people are really just the result of their circumstances and therefore deserve more empathy (this view is not perfect either - letting criminals runs free because they lack free will would not be beneficial to society).

Sure it does.

Did you feel like you couldn't control yourself and that something stronger than you wrote this post instead of you for some unexplainabke reason? If not you experienced an example of free will personaly.

Having emotions possitive and negative is part of being human. Having a mental illness is a sign of abnormalities in the brain function all of which could be checked. Otherwise depressive feelings are a cry for help, which again has nothing to do with free will. You're just acting out your emotions.

If you actually feel like something outside of you is telling you to do things you don't want, that's usually a sign you are in immidiate need for help even if this epizode was drug induced psychosis.

From the context of your post, I'd say you're fine but probably worry to much. So how about you make some time for yourself and do something nice for yourself? You might just feel a whole lot better if you would have just take a day off.

Not long after I was born, a catastrophic event wrecked my body and sealed my fate. Starting in early childhood, I knew that something was fundamentally wrong with me, but didn't know why. Long story short, life went downhill for several decades, until it reached some kind of rock bottom, and my body started shutting down. That's when phase #2 started.

I recently came across a testimony from some guy whose name I can't recall, and what caught my attention was his mentioning of being aware of a blueprint of the body that did not overlap with his actual physical body -that was my experience, exactly. I won't even go into the weirdness of the process that started about 6 years ago, and it's still going strong (although, if someone is going through something similar, I'm available to discuss my experience).

What I will say is that, after the first couple of years of body metamorphosis, it hit me that my personality was undergoing radical changes. That is to say, my thoughts, my emotions, my very perception of the world were changing alongside the alignment of my spine. I was, and I still am turning into a completely different person, as my body is adjusting to fit the above-mentioned blueprint.

So where's the free will in that? I look at my not-so-distant past and I'm like 'who is that guy'?!
fml

I personally do not believe in free will. I definitely see it as more of an illusion. I believe in a cause and effect universe that unfolds perfectly. I didn't choose my parents nor form the structures of my brain, and I certainly had no power over any of the events that predated this human. All the thoughts and actions that I feel so strongly "belong" to "me" are really just manifestations of nature that took form due to how the structures of this brain-body organism functions (and sets things in motion) in general as well as how it reacts with its environment. I do not believe I am my thoughts or body, but rather they are just appearances of nature/universe that feel/think a certain way and arise due to conditions (cause and effect).

However, I do admit that my view may be biased coming from a Buddhist background. Sooo there could totally be free will, it just doesn't seem like it to me, that's all.

Yeah free will me this, free will me that. Loads of people talking about being free while stting in cages and avoiding getting up and standing straight by talking. Bluh bluh bluh. Go out and play with your friends dul boy, that's an order!

Visionary plants(entheogens) catalyze a state that has been ARCHETYPALLY represented as one in which the initiate is introduced to the "transcendent" worldview, mental model. This mental model, as opposed to the "egoic", reveals, NO SEPERATE SELF and NO FREE WILL, metaphysically. Much of myth and religious symbology allegorically address this ancient(archetypal) equilibrium twixt "egoic" and "transcendent" mind frames.

It is useful to recognize that modernity is too captured by literalism, even in its interrogation of exactly this topic of "free will". Quantum has revealed the foundational nature of uncertainty in reality. A more edifying dialogue re "free will"(or any topic) can be had when we embrace its(free will) spectral character. Free will, like EVERYTHING, exists on a continuum.

During default consciousness(egoic) life, free will operates rather distinctly. If I choose not to go to work>>>I will lose my job. Determinism, yet in the, individual, cause>>>effect, worldview. During the entheogen catalyzed, intensely mystical(transcendent) consciousness life, free will is EXPERIENCED to operate rather less distinctly, indeed even cease. This can seem an "ego-death", as the time travelling agent(self) looses its(illusory) individuality. Time and space lose dimensionality and directionality, the "block universe", with its SINGLE, already determined, FIXED future are EXPERIENCED. Choosing a particular choice is meaningless in the sense that, that decision, and every other, has already been made. Determinism, yet in the, universal, cause>>>effect, world view.

This being, Heimarmene, fate of the universe as a whole, as opposed to the destinies of individual people or events. Like everything, it's perspectival or reference framational. Sure we have free will at a micro-cosmic level...YET...Surely we have NO free will from a macro-cosmic perspective. We are wholly EMBEDDED in the reality generating, Source plenum(universe). COMPLETELY dependent, devoid of influence over, whence/when, we come or go!!!

It is this strong propensity of entheogens to REMIND us of the, non-literality/non-linearity, of LIFE and REALITY ITSELF, that makes them such valuable gifts. Genuine insight comes with recognition of polarities. They(poles) define each other, are a unity. We always apperceive from some point on the spectrum betwixt. It's the capacity to move across the spectrum, both directions, that lends us "enlightenment"!

Peace

What is "I"?

It (we) can be like a "glider"... just another information-processing-process, processing its way (what we call life) till it alters with an other information-processing-process (death).

Even life itself.. maybe it underlies the same process as what we believe to observe in this 3d space.

Maybe it is all the same (unimagineable) matrix, with the same rules bringing up the same patterns, unfolding intra-, inter- and transdimensional. ONE

Sorry.. what was the question? What really exists? I don't know.

Love, tseuq