What makes you so sure the eternel doesn't encompass the ability for portions or fragments of itself to gather together and form free will? Perhaps the eternal just sits and waits for all of its little peices to stop fagmenting and slowly turn their awareness to the eterel truth that they are? Why cant we as parts of the eternel exercise free will?

What is free will? (You still haven't said.)

And to answer your question, I’m sure there isn’t free will (at least if we define free will as being related somehow to choice) because it’s a logical impossibility.

Now, if you define free will in such a way that it isn’t somehow related to choice, then we can examine that further, but a definition that doesn’t include choice would be a very unusual definition.

Free will is the ability, but not the requirement of a being to chose between different outcomes.

That doesn’t quite make sense. If a being is presented with a choice and has the ability to choose, then a choice will be made. (Choosing not to do anything is often one of the possible choices.)

With that clarification, I am in agreement. We have the ability to choose. Agreed.

But my dog also has the ability to choose – if I have a toy in one hand and a treat in the other, he will make a choice. Does he have free will?

And computers make choices – a conditional branch instruction will lead to different outcomes depending on the value of the condition. Do computers have free will?

If the root of a plant encounters a rock, and the tip of the root is perfectly normal/perpendicular to the rock, the root will “choose” a direction around the obstacle. Do plants have free will?

My thermostat continuously monitors room temperature. Before the set temperature is reached, the thermostat chooses to do nothing. When the set temperature is reached, the thermostat “chooses” to turn on the heat. Does my thermostat have free will?

If that’s how you define free will, then that’s how you define it, but it seems to allow free will for any system that has the ability to choose.

your example of computers isn't a relevant one, because people created the construct (programming language). there is no such thing as 'irrational' commands. your theory that a computer can emulate the prefrontal cortex is completely incorrect (logic in the human brain occurs further back, in the hippocampus).
AI is still a pipedream, like quantum computing.

How is it not relevant? What difference does it make if people create a machine that makes choices or if nature does the creating? Computers make choices. Unless now we’re defining “choice” differently too.

Of course it’s not possible for a computer to emulate a brain. I never said it was. But in theory it may be possible. So in theory, it’s possible that a machine could do everything that the human brain does.

That's actually a slippery statement--and the trick word is "choose." It posits a "special place" from which decisions ensue, that is neither a realm of cause and effect, nor randomness. But the real existence of that "place" is, as best as can be determined, an illusion our minds create.

I find that people have trouble with "free will" because they think it means that "they" can't influence the decisions they make. But of course "they" can. But what is the "they?" It's just one part of the mind that puts together information and makes decisions--and those decisions are nothing other than the DETERMINED effect of all the "causes" that are already in the mind (how the personality and individual tendencies and biases have developed over time, etc., etc.) plus the immediate mental causes, plus the external inputs.

The idea that "we" are in a "special state or place" that is UNCONNECTED to our brains and the universe is a DELUSION. There is no special place or special state where "we" exist. We're just a part of everything, intimately and completely connected to it, that "runs" as our "karma" (the history of causes and effects that has brought us to where we are) causes it to run.

UNDERSTANDING is the only possible process of change in such a system--it allows for more input, and better analysis of that input. And it's "good karmic luck" if you are someone who has a BUILT IN TENDENCY (i.e., the permanent CAUSE) to seek to understand; you have the capacity to be a more and more "useful and meaningful node**" in the flux of the universe.

**Or should I say "Nexus??"

in theory, anything is possible; but using quantum-speak, it may not be 'probable'.
a theory without a model to show evidence is anecdotal speculation.
plain and simple. the computer emulates the human hippocampus, but not the prefrontal cortex.
the prefrontal cortex is what makes humans unique, it is the decision-making center, which also involves emotions and behavior.

while we're pointing out theories, in theory, you could get hit by a car, but it never really makes contact with you.

this semantics-based thread could go on for months.

Your posts are simply evading some very simple, straightforward questions.

If you claim that people have free will, then you must be ready to define what free will is. joedirt stepped up and gave his provisional definition. You have yet to give yours.

I agree that arguing about whether or not computers can someday emulate the human brain won’t get us anywhere in this discussion. But according to joedirt’s definition, computers already have free will.

So what is your definition of free will? (And saying “It’s when I decide to do something and do it” describes behavior. It doesn’t define free will.)

This I fully agree with.

Why would I attempt to limit what can encompass free will?

How woulf you define it?

free will is simply the ability to make a choice based on rational/irrational reasoning. this may be rooted in logic, or not.
a flower has no free will, it is limited by rigid cell walls and environmental stimuli, and lacks a prefrontal-cortex. You can dance around this neurological fact all you want, but it is still very relevant, about as relevant as conciousness itself.

if you want to argue the laws of physics, fine. by definition, free will is not completely free;
but we are still free to make decisions within these laws.

If it is defined as being in some way related to choice, then it does not exist. If it is defined as you define it, then it really isn’t “free”.


Aren’t you also limited by “cell walls and environmental stimuli”? It’s true that a flower doesn’t have a pre-fontal cortex, but neither does a computer:

Without too much difficulty, a computer could be programmed to “make choices based on rational/irrational reasoning, rooted in logic, or not” (the irrational reasoning would be especially easy to program!) So a computer can satisfy your definition of having free will.

This exemplifies a fundamental problem with "free will" discussions: people's definitions can be VERY different--and the debaters are arguing about two different things.

I don't think benzyme's definition is adequate. To be more complete, the question has to be asked "what is the 'thing' that makes the choice; and is that thing itself, and it's actions, susceptible to determinism?"

My position is that it's not even necessary to know what the "thing" is. It's necessary only to realize that we know of NO THING in existence that DOESN'T work either by determinism, from causes, or randomly (and the only thing we know of that's random are quantum events).

not true, because computers follow instructions that are limited by on and off; can't be both at the same time. like I said, quantum computers haven't arrived yet. computer languages are based on logic instructions, give me an example of how one would program a computer to run on illogical instructions (computers denote redundancy and syntax errors).

a flower can't decide to get up and move to a new pot or flowerbed.

both of these examples observe laws of physics, but have nothing to do with rational/irrational decision-making.


if you want to go there, this is a completely different discussion about consciousness and social constructs, which could go on for another 40 pages.

So you’re suggesting that rational/irrational decision-making lies outside of physics? That human decision-making violates the laws of physics?
(You're also suggesting, for reasons you don't explain, that a computer is not capable of making rational/irrational decisions. There's a class of applications called "expert systems" which do just that.)

(It’s true a flower can’t decide to get up and move, but a person can’t decide to flap his arms and fly. What’s the point your trying to make here?)

my point is the human has greater decision-making ability than the flower.
if flowers were mobile and had a prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, they'd probably be battling for world domination.

OK, that’s better. You’re starting to refine your definition. Now you’re saying that free will is related to a certain degree of decision-making capability, and that below a certain threshold, things don’t have free will, and above it they do?

So are you suggesting that free will is an “emergent property”? An epiphenomenon that arises out of complexity?

Benzyme, are you saying that the prefrontal cortex is a magical non-mechanistic box... the seat of the "mind" in the Cartesian mind-body duality? Because it seems to me that the only way to rescue free will is to remove it from a material mechanistic context.

A flower makes choices without being conscious of any reasoning in them. The human prefrontal cortex gives us the ability to be conscious of our reasoning, but if we're considering it to be a material construct, then it is still mechanistic. We can consider our options, but this consideration is not free, it's more along the lines of a complex mechanistic subroutine. And we can select between the scenarios we consider and act on them for any of a number of reasons... but again if the mind is a material construct, then this selection is also mechanistic. We can be conscious of the reasoning behind our actions, and because of the peculiar circumstance of subjectively experiencing the world through the same constructs which are doing the reasoning (i.e. our mind) we can feel that "we" are free, that "we" are choosing... but under the paradigm of material and mechanism, I don't see any way to construe this as free will, any more than a flower "deciding" to bud is exercising free will. We are at the whim of our cognitive circuitry, even if our subjective experience of it gives illusions to the contrary.

A quick anecdote, before I return to my main point: A few moments ago I was mowing the lawn. My eye cringed shut a split-second before a small chip of bark struck my eyelid. Had I not closed my eye, the chip would have struck very near my cornea. I didn't see the chip flying towards my eye and decide to shut it. I actually didn't perceive the chip at all. As my eye was shutting, I had enough time to begin to wonder why my eye was shutting before I felt the chip strike my eyelid. In short, I could not have kept my eyelid open if I'd wanted to... was my free will temporarily suspended? Does free will only apply to reasoned decisions, and not to the abundance of split-second choices we make without necessarily being aware of them?

Anyway, back to my main point of materialism and non-materialism in the context of free will. Gibran, I understand that you are of a non-materialist bent, yet you seem to indicate that mechanism negates free will using logic that I can only justify in a materialist perspective. In the realm of matter and energy, there is always cause and effect, but I see no reason why this must hold true in non-material realms. As we have no way to investigate the nature of non-material realms, we can (and people often do) invent whatever sorts of rules they wish to apply. Some imagine cause and effect (for example karma in the Hindu spiritual worldview), but it is not necessary. We could just as well imagine spirits of pure volition, which are free to act but are not acted upon or operated by cause and effect or other mechanistic influences (for example the Cartesian "mind"). In this case your tautology holds true -- something causes choice -- but its conclusion does not. In this case, "something" could in fact the agency in question. It causes its own choices, and thus has free will. Is there an aspect to your argument which I'm not grasping?

OK

i think i'm finally seeing eye-to-eye with you guys.
I definitely observe that we are not free to make decisions that violate physical laws, I've already specified that. i'm merely implying that we can actively make decisions based on conscious (or even subconscious, i admit) reasoning. I still contend that these may or may not have anything to do with logic, but almost always have something to do with behavior and emotion, both occuring in the prefrontal cortex. consciousness is of course, the major factor.
a comatose person doesn't make any decisions.

is that more clear?

but yea..i agree, free will is not exactly free.