Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Free will...

Options
2»

Comments

  • Options
    #32
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    robindch wrote: »
    Again, I think you should be more specific -- what sense of "freedom" and under what conditions? Are we talking about physical freedom (ie, want to fly, but don't have wings), social freedom (to want to ask that girl to the flicks, but too embarrassed), biological freedom (want to have a baby, but am male), mental freedom (want to compose symphonies, but can't) or what I think you're referring to, which is the more self-referential choice-limiting schemes like tabu-based or subtle risk/reward-based frameworks?
    To be more specific, I'm referring to moral/ethical choices that we're faced with every day. e.g.

    - Do I walk past the beggar or stop and give him/her money.
    - If I see someone drop money do I give it back to them or keep it?
    - If I have a big row with a guy, do I hit him or try to calm down etc, etc.

    I each of these cases the person makes a choice. The question is - am I truly free to make that choice or am I by nature limited in what choices I can make?


  • Options
    #33
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    bogwalrus wrote: »
    free will is insignificant. Only when humans are all knowing will they be able to make a decision where they will know the "full" consequences of their actions. In this sense of the idea of free will, because humans are limited in knowledge and will probably never be all knowing then the illusion of us being able to make a decision with a certain long-term desired outcome is apparent.
    Interesting answer. Why does one have to be omniscient to have free will?


  • Options
    #34
    Tim Robbins
    Registered Users Posts: 9,000 ✭✭✭Tim Robbins


    kelly1 wrote: »
    To be more specific, I'm referring to moral/ethical choices that we're faced with every day. e.g.

    - Do I walk past the beggar or stop and give him/her money.
    - If I see someone drop money do I give it back to them or keep it?
    - If I have a big row with a guy, do I hit him or try to calm down etc, etc.

    I each of these cases the person makes a choice. The question is - am I truly free to make that choice or am I by nature limited in what choices I can make?
    None of them necessitate a God. Unless you can show they do. If you can't this is all moot.


  • Options
    #35
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    Tim Robbins wrote: »
    None of them necessitate a God. Unless you can show they do. If you can't this is all moot.
    Again, I didn't mention God. I'm trying to understand the atheist view on free-will.


  • Options
    #36
    Tim Robbins
    Registered Users Posts: 9,000 ✭✭✭Tim Robbins


    kelly1 wrote: »
    Again, I didn't mention God. I'm trying to understand the atheist view on free-will.
    Fair enough Noel.
    Ok here's my understanding, in Philosophy there is a causal view, where everything that happens has a cause.

    So if you stop and give something to the begger, it is because perhaps because you were brought up that way, you used to be a beggar or because the molecules in your brain that dictate how much empathy you have and how charitable you are make you that way. Either way, upbringing, past experience or just molecular structure of your head makes you do what you do.

    Free will would be the opposite in that there is a part of your brain that is not pre programmed and not influenced but can make decisions entirely freely.

    My own view is that we are somewhere in between.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #37
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    Tim Robbins wrote: »
    Fair enough Noel.
    Ok here's my understanding, in Philosophy there is a causal view, where everything that happens has a cause.

    So if you stop and give something to the begger, it is because perhaps because you were brought up that way, you used to be a beggar or because the molecules in your brain that dictate how much empathy you have and how charitable you are make you that way. Either way, upbringing, past experience or just molecular structure of your head makes you do what you do.
    What I'm getting from this is that one's actions are not really based on choice but that we have no alternative based on upbringing, past experience/molecules. Wouldn't it also be fair, in that case, to say that upbringing and past experience etc result in changes to the brain making consequent actions inevitable. Is that a fair statement?
    Tim Robbins wrote: »
    Free will would be the opposite in that there is a part of your brain that is not pre programmed and not influenced but can make decisions entirely freely.

    My own view is that we are somewhere in between.
    If our thoughts come purely from matter (organic molecules/electrical impulses etc), how could any thoughts/actions be freely done. A machine does what it's told, it does not have reason and free will. Our brain is like a very advanced computer with inputs and outputs (according to some atheists). Is there part of the brain that works outside (transcends) the laws of physics (which the brain is subject to)?


  • Options
    #38
    Tim Robbins
    Registered Users Posts: 9,000 ✭✭✭Tim Robbins


    kelly1 wrote: »
    Wouldn't it also be fair, in that case, to say that upbringing and past experience etc result in changes to the brain making consequent actions inevitable. Is that a fair statement?
    consequent actions more probable not inevitable.
    If our thoughts come purely from matter (organic molecules/electrical impulses etc), how could any thoughts/actions be freely done. A machine does what it's told, it does not have reason and free will. Our brain is like a very advanced computer with inputs and outputs (according to some atheists). Is there part of the brain that works outside (transcends) the laws of physics (which the brain is subject to)?
    I think you are referring to the mind / body problem there.

    I don't think there is any part of the brain that works outside the laws of physics / science. We may not know all the laws just yet though.


  • Options
    #39
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    JoeBallantine wrote: »
    It comes down to mind over matter...
    How can mind and matter be different? Isn't everything matter according to the atheist?
    JoeBallantine wrote: »
    Kelly1 seems to suggest we were created with free will yet God knows our own choices before we make them... I don't understand this as free will at all... clearly we are constrained by Gods supposed foreknowledge of our choices?
    Just because God knows the future doesn't mean we don't have free will. He just knows what choices we're going to make without actually forcing us to do anything.


  • Options
    #40
    Tim Robbins
    Registered Users Posts: 9,000 ✭✭✭Tim Robbins


    kelly1 wrote: »
    How can mind and matter be different? Isn't everything matter according to the atheist?
    No that's called a materialist. Several atheists are known as mystics. Colin McGinn would be example.
    His argument is that we have a limited understanding and there is something
    outside that limit we will never understand.
    Just because God knows the future doesn't mean we don't have free will. He just knows what choices we're going to make without actually forcing us to do anything.
    I thought you weren't bringing God into it :-)


  • Options
    #41
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    kelly1 wrote: »
    What I'm getting from this is that one's actions are not really based on choice but that we have no alternative based on upbringing, past experience/molecules. Wouldn't it also be fair, in that case, to say that upbringing and past experience etc result in changes to the brain making consequent actions inevitable. Is that a fair statement?

    You are kinda skipping over what you actually mean by "choice"

    What is choice except for the outcome of the chemicals in our brain?


  • Advertisement
Advertisement